New Delhi:In what is yet another boost to New Delhi’s defence cooperation with Southeast Asia, India has handed over INS Kirpan, a Khukri-class corvette, to the Vietnam Navy. It is the first active warship that India has ever gifted to a friendly country.
In fact, the transfer ceremony held on July 22 at Cam Ranh International Port in Vietnam was presided over by Adm. R. Hari Kumar, Chief of the Indian Navy, and Rear Adm. Pham Manh Hung, Deputy Commander-in-Chief and Chief of Staff, Vietnam People's Navy. This comes close on the heels of Vietnamese Defence Minister Gen. Phan Van Giang’s visit to India last month.
India and Vietnam signed a formal agreement for defence cooperation in 1994. Relations between the two countries were elevated to the level of ‘Strategic Partnership’ during the visit of then Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to India in July 2007. In 2016, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Vietnam, bilateral relations were further elevated to a ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’.
Then again, during Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s visit to Vietnam in June last year, the two sides also signed the ‘Joint Vision Statement on India-Vietnam Defence Partnership towards 2030’, which will significantly enhance the scope and scale of existing defence cooperation. A Memorandum of Understanding on Mutual Logistics Support was also inked in the presence of the Defence Ministers of the two countries.
“Vietnam is the key pillar of India’s Act East Policy,” Temjenmeren Ao, Associate Fellow in the Southeast Asia & Oceania Centre at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, told ETV Bharat. “This is because both countries face common challenges in security, both traditional and non-traditional. These include maritime security, piracy, terrorism and natural disasters and relief.”
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Apart from the cooperation between the Ministries of Defence of the two sides, this engagement has diversified into wider military-to-military dialogue and exchanges, training programmes and bilateral exercises. Given China’s aggression in the South China Sea, maritime security has emerged as a critical area of cooperation between India and Vietnam.