WASHINGTON, Dec. 11, Reuters: U.S. and Indian negotiators have reached tentative agreement on the security arrangements for the sale of an American supercomputer to India, State Department officials said, today.
The planned multi-million dollar sale is seen as a further example ‘of growing high technology cooperation between the two countries.
officials have said the sale must be subject of strict security safeguards to ensure that highly sensitive American technology does not fall into unauthorized hands.
‘The super computers the ultimate in present computer technology, has a wide variety of military applications. India, which ‘wants it for monsoon research is a close friend of the Soviet Union, from which it buys most of its military equipment.
Tentative agreement on procedures for the transfer of a super computer to India was reached in three days of U.S, Indian talks in New Delhi that ended yesterday, State Department spokesman Phyllis Oakley told reporters.
The US team was led by Robert Dean, Senior Representative for strategic technology at the State Department; The Indian negotiators were headed by foreign secretary A.P. Venkateswaran.
Oakely said the text of the agreement was classified and had still 0 be considered by higher levels of the two governments.
She noted that the U.S. Indian high technology relationship was ‘expanding to include not only the sale of advanced computers but also technology to permit the manufacture of computers and computer software in India.
She said this cooperation had been made possible by a 1984 ‘memorandum of understanding on technology “as well as India’s high level of scientific and technological development”.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 19, 1986
