India's Bid To Join Missile Control Group Remains Stalled

The failure of a series of diplomatic and legal efforts to solve a dispute between Italy and India over the deaths of two fishermen has left India’s bid to become a major global military player on hold, sources said.

A visit by Indian leader Narenda Modi to Brussels on March 30 for an India-European Union summit saw no easing of the standoff between Italy and India in the wake of the Asian nation’s arrest in 2012 of two Italian marines accused of shooting Indian fishermen while guarding an oil tanker.

That means Italy looks set to continue to veto India’s entry into the key Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an exclusive club which counts 34 member states and controls access to missile and UAV technology by nonmembers.

“I am not 100 percent pessimistic and I know the two countries are talking, but I am doubtful anything is moving,” said a source with knowledge of talks between Italy and India on the MTCR.

The stalemate in Brussels was revealed when Indian leader Modi and the EU issued a cautious, joint statement March 30:

"The EU shares Italy's concerns to find an expeditious solution for the prolonged restriction of liberty of the two Marines," said the statement.

"India stressed the need for rendering due justice for the families of the Indian fishermen who were killed," it added.

The dispute stretches back to 2012 to when the two marines, Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone, shot at an Indian fishing boat that approached the ship they were guarding. Indian authorities later held the Italians for shooting dead two of the fishermen on-board.

Latore was allowed to return to Italy last year after he suffered a stroke, but Girone remains in New Delhi, living at the Italian ambassador’s residence and reporting to local police.

Insisting the ship was in international waters and the shooting should not be treated as an Indian criminal case, Italy appealed to the U.N.-mandated International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in Hamburg, Germany, which in turn referred the case to the Hague-based Arbitration Panel.

The panel held hearings as Modi visited Brussels, and appeared to hit a stalemate as India resisted Italy’s demand to allow Girone to go home to Italy until the time the panel could decide how the case should proceed.

The hearing follows Italy's bid to put pressure on India to hand back the marine last October when it vetoed India’s membership in the MTCR group, using the rule that all new members should be approved unanimously.

India’s exclusion from the group, which was founded in 1987, has been a blow to the US, which is trying to promote India’s military standing in Asia to counter China.

“We know the US is a prime mover on this case, but the US also knows that what it can do is limited since things have been complicated by these new legal tracks involving the marines,” said the source.

One Italian analyst said that MTCR membership was crucial to India’s standing. “It is an exclusive club and is important to India because it deals with missiles, UAVs and launchers,” said Michele Nones at the IAI think tank in Rome.

“Not being part of it is important for India because it limits US exports to the country,” he added. “For the US it slows [President Barack] Obama’s wish to bring India into the US orbit. It is very irritating for both India and the US and I believe the US has talked to India about changing its outlook on the case.”

The next full plenary meeting of the MTCR is likely to be in October in South Korea, when Seoul takes over temporary chairmanship of the group.

However, discussions may take place at an interim meeting in Paris in the third week of April.

Nones said he stood behind Italy’s use of leverage at the MTCR group to push India to hand back Girone. “I am surprised Italy did not do it sooner,” he said. “India’s behavior has been incomprehensible since it insisted on treating it as a criminal case instead of accepting government-level talks. These were two military personnel doing their duty under the authority of the Italian government.”

But Nones said he saw a simple way out of the crisis that would allow India into the MTCR.

“I believe that if India let Girone go home, Italy will accept India into the MTCR,” he said. “That will still leave decisions to be made by the Arbitration Panel, but it could be years before that happens,” he added.