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India's Ministry of Defence (MoD) issued a letter of request (LoR) to the United States on 17 June to procure 22 multimission General Atomics Guardian (a maritime variant of the Predator B) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for the Indian Navy (IN) via the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) route.
Official sources said the request for the maritime patrol aircraft, which would monitor the Indian Ocean region and surrounding areas, was despatched to the Offices of Defense Cooperation in the US Embassy in New Delhi. The move follows India's induction into the 35-nation Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) on 6 June.
Indian sources said a letter of acceptance from the US would follow later in the year, after which price negotiations would begin and the UAV contract be signed sometime in 2017-18. It is unclear, however, whether the IN will acquire the non-weaponised Guardian variant - featuring intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities - or the weaponised one, or both.
Earlier efforts by the Indian Air Force (IAF) to import General Atomics Predator Avenger UAVs in 2015 were rejected by Washington given that India was not an MTCR member at the time and hence not eligible to acquire the weaponised platforms. Now that the situation has changed the IAF is expected to also restate its UAV requirements via an LoR to the US, MoD officials said.
Besides joining the MTCR, India was also granted 'Major Defense Partner' status by the US during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent trip to Washington, DC. In their 7 June joint statement India was assured access to US technology to a level commensurate with that of Washington's closest allies.
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