India, Sri Lanka among 13-nations in naval exercise

India kicked off on Friday a 13-nation naval exercise off its Andaman archipelago it said was aimed at improving disaster management and not an attempt to form a security bloc.

The exercises are the biggest naval event off the India-administered island cluster since 2007 when a smaller exercise involving Australia, India, Japan, Singapore and the United States, riled giant neighbour China.

At a seminar organised to coincide with the drill, India's navy chief Admiral Nirmal Verma denied that the exercise was aimed at intimidating China, with which the country fought a brief border war more than four decades ago. Admiral Verma said the drill, codenamed Milan, which means “meeting” in Hindi, was purely aimed at improving coordination among Indian Ocean navies and not an attempt to form any regional security alliance.

"It is not a multilateral exercise but more of coming together for disaster relief and humanitarian assistance," Admiral Verma, host of the six-day drill, said in local capital Port Blair.

The navies of Australia, Bangladesh, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the Philippines, New Zealand and Vietnam took part. Eight nations sent nine warships while the remaining four were represented by senior naval officials. An unspecified number of Indian vessels are also part of the drill.

China has been eyeing India with suspicion since it announced in 2005 ambitious acquisition plans for its navy and new military hardware that would give it greater clout in the strategic energy corridors of the Indian Ocean. The Indian navy, besides constructing or buying ships, submarines and aircraft, has also been building ties with countries in the region to expand its reach in the Indian Ocean.

After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, India's navy played an international role, deploying warships to help devastated Sri Lanka and Indonesia in what analysts said was a bid to project itself as a regional power with offshore military strength.

- Asian Tribune -