India signed an agreement with Vietnam on December 5 to train Vietnamese Sukhoi-30 Pilots. Vietnam uses Russian-made Sukhoi-30 MK2 ‘Flanker-F’ multirole combat aircraft while India operates Sukhoi-30 MKi.
This is the second major training programme after Vietnamese Navy was trained by Indian Navy in operating Russian-origin kilo-class submarines.
The agreement was signed at a meeting between Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and his Vietnamese counterpart General Ngo Xuan Lich on Monday in New Delhi.
This came against the backdrop of the growing assertiveness of China in the region. India and Vietnam have been steadily stepping up their cooperation, especially in the defence sector.
India and Vietnam are both worried about China’s growing influence in the Asia-Pacific region and are steadily building cooperation in military training, exercises and defence technology, as well as in joint oil exploration in the contentious South China Sea.
It can be recalled that India has already had two defence exercises with China earlier this year: exercise hand-in-hand and Sino-China Cooperation.
The Indian Air Force and the Vietnamese People’s Army Air Force are expected to imminently work out the details on the number of pilots to be trained, the scope of their instruction, and the overall cost.
Earlier this year, India has even offered to export the BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles, Varunastra anti-submarine torpedoes, and other military hardware and software to Vietnam.
The pact on the training of Vietnamese fighter pilots has been in the works since 2013, but could not be finalised earlier due to some logistical and financial hitches.
Now, Vietnamese pilots will begin arriving in India from next year onwards to get both basic and advanced training on the Sukhois of the IAF.
