Update | India rejects China’s request to search territorial waters for missing Malaysia Airlines jet
India has rejected a Chinese request to enter territorial waters in the Andaman Sea in an effort to search for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 over concerns that the request might be an excuse for military snooping.
“There was no need for anybody else to search the area,” Press Trust of India, the country’s largest news agency, quoted unidentified government sources as saying.
India thus “politely rejected” the Chinese request to allow People’s Liberation Army Navy ships enter waters near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The request was made on Wednesday and entailed the dispatch of four ships, including two frigates and a salvage vessel.
We don’t want Chinese warships sniffing around in the area on the pretext of hunting for the missing jetliner or anti-piracy patrols.
It came on the same day PLA Navy spokesman Liang Yang said Chinese search efforts would shift westwards and focus on two areas: the Andaman Sea and waters southwest of the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
India has already deployed its coast guard, four warships and three military aircraft to search the Andaman Sea for clues over the plane’s whereabouts, an unnamed navy officer told the Times of India, the country’s most-widely read English-language newspaper.
Chinese warships would have brought no new capabilities to that search, Ashley J. Tellis, a security and defence expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the South China Morning Post. "I am surprised the Chinese actually made the request, given that their search capabilities in the region are inferior to India's," he said.
Two further Indian aircraft are joined the international search force based in Malaysia on Friday, the paper reported.