Have not made determination on CAATSA waiver for India, will continue talks: US

The United States on Tuesday said that it has not made a determination on a potential waiver on CAATSA sanctions for India's purchase of S400 missile defence system and added that Washington will continue to have a conversation with New Delhi over arms transactions with Russia.

"We have urged all of our allies and all of our partners to forego transactions with Russia that may risk triggering sanctions under CAATSA (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act)," said State Department Spokesperson Ned Price on the question of sanction waiver for India.

"We have not made a determination on a potential waver with respect to Indian arms transactions with Russia. CAATSA however, does not have a country-specific waiver provision attached to it," he added.

This comes as Russia has started the delivery of the S400 Triumf surface to air missile system to India, under the agreement signed by the Narendra Modi government for over USD 5 billion.

In this context, Price noted that the US defence relationship with India has expanded and deepened significantly in recent years. "We expect this strong momentum in our defence relationship to continue. We value our strategic partnership with India."

He further said that the members of the US Congress are deeply interested in the ongoing conversation with India.

"It's a conversation that takes place in the context of the defence relationship that is meaningful to us and that is important to both the United States and India, including the context of free and open Indo-Pacific. So I suspect that those conversations will continue," Price added.

Earlier this month, the director-general of Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport Alexander Mikheev said that the first regiment of Russia's anti-aircraft missile system air defence (PRO) S-400 will be delivered to India by the end of 2021.

"All the property of the first regimental set of S-400s will be delivered to India at the end of 2021," Mikheev was quoted as saying by Russian news agency Sputnik. He added that the deliveries started ahead of schedule.

( With inputs from ANI )

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