As per the information received from a senior US official, The United States has offered the armed version of the Guardian drone to India. These Guardian drones were initially authorized for sale as unarmed UAVs for all kinds of surveillance drives.
It’s a big step for both the countries as it is the first time the US have agreed to sell an armed drone to a country outside the NATO alliance. A top level meeting is supposed to be held sometime in the month of September. The defence source stated, that India wanted to procure these UAVs so as to be able to neutralize terrestrial and aerial threats and not just for surveillance. “We are trying to move it to the top of the agenda as a deliverable, this is something that can happen before all the other items,” said one official.
A senior official stated, “The US Navy and the Indian Navy have been cooperating for many years on counter-piracy efforts, on ensuring freedom of navigation in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.”
He added, “I think that [defence] cooperation is only going to increase based on the need for it to increase and the kind of trust that we are building through personal relationships and through a fundamental understanding that our interests aligned so clearly.”
