MEA dismisses media reports suggesting US in talks with India for staging over-the-horizon strikes in Afghanistan

New Delhi: The government on Thursday dismissed media reports suggesting that the US administration was in talks with India for staging ‘over-the-horizon’ strikes in Afghanistan.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Arindam Bagchi, to questions on the issue, said that the media reports regarding the US Congressional hearing on Afghanistan were “slightly different” from the actual conversation between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Congressmen who grilled him during the hearing on Tuesday.

“We have seen media reports on this issue; there is some confusion regarding this,” he said.

On Tuesday, US Congressman Mark Green asked Blinken during the committee hearing if the US was thinking of approaching India as a “staging area for over-the-horizon forces”.

Mark Green asked: “Considering rumours of the ISI’s support for the Talban, have you guys reached out to India as a possible staging area for the over-the-horizon forces -and I’m talking northwest India as a potential – because we all know Qatar and Doha and the other places are just a little bit too far… Kuwait, all that? What about northwest India… have you reached out, have you thought about that?”

Blinken in reply said: “Let me just say generally, Congressmen, we are deeply engaged with India across the board. With regard to any specifics about over-the-horizon capabilities — and the plans that we put in place, and will continue to put in place, I’d rather take that up in a different setting.”

In reply, Green said: “I’m glad to at least know that there’s an opportunity to talk about that because I think that, from my standpoint is an opportunity we should seize.”

Referring to media reports on the issue, the MEA spokesperson said: “As you are aware we continue to be engaged with the US and other partners regarding developments in Afghanistan.”

He added that he would “not like to respond to media reports on this issue because that what I have seen, and I would actually request you to go through the actual conversation in the US Congress Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, which is different from what you are hearing about in the media reports.”

Asked whether the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) signed with the US would allow America to use India’s military bases, he said that of the “foundational agreements inked with the US, the logistics one is very different from the media reports I am reading.”

“I have seen the conversation in the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, and it doesn’t seem to indicate any of these things,” he added.

In October 2020, India and the US had signed the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA), which, along with the two agreements signed earlier — the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) in 2016 and the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) in 2018 — forms the troika of “foundational pacts” for deep military cooperation between the two countries.

Over-the-horizon radar (OTH), sometimes called beyond the horizon (BTH), is a type of radar system with the ability to detect targets at very long ranges, typically hundreds to thousands of kilometres.

UNI