Allaying fears of US openly accessing military sites and equipment under the bilateral End-User pact, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Wednesday that the pact "does not compromise" India's sovereignty, but provided "an element of predictability" through options.
"There is nothing in the text that compromises India's sovereignty. There is no provision for unilateral verification by the US on imported defence equipment. India has a sovereign right."
"Any verification has to follow a request and it will be decided only on mutually-accepted date and venue. This has introduced an element of predictability," Singh said while making an intervention during the debate on his recent foreign visits.
He was responding to BJP leader Yashwant Sinha's concern that there was no clarity on the recent End-User Monitoring pact agreed during the visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that provided for US experts to verify imported defence equipment.
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