India, Malaysia to deepen defence ties, set up Su 30 forum

NEW DELHI: India and Malaysia plan to exchange notes on exploiting common military platforms and upgrading joint training exercises as part of a new thrust in defence relations agreed upon during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kuala Lumpur.

While India has in the past trained Malaysian air force pilots on the Russian Su 30 fighter aircraft that is operated by both nations, the two countries have now decided to set up a ‘Su 30 forum’, a joint platform that will exchange information on training, maintenance and technical support of the fleet.

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The potent Su 30 fighter – India flies the customised MKI version while Malaysia operates the MKM variant – is being operated in the largest numbers by the Indian Air Force that will eventually get 272 of the jets.

“We have considerable experience on the fighters and have operated them in all conditions. We can share our experience on things like maintenance as well as flight safety with Malaysia,” an air force official told ET. Maintenance expertise as well as spares developed by state-run Hindustan Aeronautics could also be shared with Malaysia, he said.

Besides the Su 30 forum, the two nations have decided to upgrade joint exercises under the Harimau Shakti series.

The war games will be progressively upgraded in the coming years to eventually become a tri services exercise involving the army, air force and navy.

Learning from the experience of the missing MH 370 airliner that escaped vigilance before disappearing, India and Malaysia will also form a joint mechanism to share information for humanitarian assistance, disaster relief as well as merchant shipping traffic. Besides regular dialogues between the defence ministers and senior military officials, from now on the annual India-Malaysia Defence Cooperation Meeting will be held at the defence secretary level.