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'India must become partner in US missile defence'
New Delhi, Feb. 16 (PTI): US missile experts on Thursday said India, like NATO and Japan, should become a development partner in the American missile defence system which was "far superior to any other such system".
Peter J Mantle and Dennis Dale Cavin said Japan had become a co-producing partner in the Patriot PAC III anti-missile shield, and would start receiving missile batteries by 2010.
"Our Government has made a classified presentation on the system to India and we as the industry were eager to follow through on it to explore possibilities of a Government-to-Government agreement," Cavin said.
"We look forward to India also joining as the co-partner in development of the missile shield," top missile executive of Lockheed-Martin said.
Taking part in a Roundtable discussion on 'Making-decision on Missile Defence' organised by the Observer Research Foundation here, in which Indian defence scientists also took part, the experts said India was facing a serious threat from short-range missiles, and the Government would have to take a decision on anti-missile defence.
Mantle, an eminent American missile expert, said in taking a decision on a missile defence system, the Government would have to choose which areas had to be covered by the anti-missile shield.
"It would have to be Government and military nerve centre, nuclear power plants and centres of economic growth generations," he said.
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200702160348.htm