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by Rahul Bedi NEW DELHI , The United States is looking to India, its newfound strategic ally, to covertly expand its vital naval influence in South Asia to bolster its growing military presence in the region.

The United States also wants India's help in containing China's proliferating sway in the Indian Ocean region.

To achieve these twin aims, the United States' covetous eyes are on eastern Sri Lanka's Trincomalee port as a staging point for its naval assets stationed in and around its Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean. To gain access to the "strategic jewel" that is Trincomalee, one of the world's biggest natural deep-sea harbours, it has "persuaded" India to step in as Washington's "proxy" to extend its influence over the port without overtly arousing suspicion of superpower hegemony.

To make this move possible, the United States, as part of establishing its long-term presence in Asia, has successfully pressured the Tamil Tiger rebels - who have been fighting for nearly two decades for an independent homeland - to persevere in their peace talks with the Sri Lankan government.

Located on the busy East-West shipping route stretching from the Suez Canal to the Malacca Straits, Trincomalee "controls" the Indian Ocean.

Through a combination of diplomacy, bullying and astute bargaining, a paranoid India had for several decades managed to prevent outside powers - especially the United States - from having access to Trincomalee.

But "with the United States now India's most coveted ally, Delhi is unlikely to object to Washington neatly tying up various strategic bonds to fully dominate the Asian region", a senior Indian security officer said.

Delhi is hoping to profit from its growing defence relations with the United States, he added.

During the Cold War years, the United States had wanted to station a Voice of America transmitter in the area as a precursor to using its warships using the harbour, but India had steadfastly opposed any such move.

One of the key clauses of the 1987 accord that led to the deployment of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka to disarm the Tigers declared that Trincomalee - particularly its oil tanks, located around 20 km from the Indian coast - would not be controlled by any foreign power "inimical" to India.

But all that has now changed.

After Sep. 11, Indo-US defence relations are confined not only to strategic cooperation through dialogue, periodic policy reviews and reciprocal visits by senior officials and service commanders.

They extend to joint military manoeuvres and the inflow of US military hardware.

Expanding bilateral strategic cooperation led to the reactivation of the Indo-U.S. Defence Policy Group (DPG), the apex military coordination body to further negotiations between the Pentagon and India's ministry of defence that were stalled after sanctions following New Delhi's 1998 nuclear tests.

In a quiet, 35-year deal recently clinched with Sri Lanka - with U.S. approval - the state-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has hammered out a 200 million rupee (4.16 million US dollar) agreement to refurbish the voluminous oil tanks at Trincomalee.

This refurbishing is happening for the first time after World War II, when British warships used them to refuel.

Currently, Ceylon Petroleum Corp operates only 15 of Trincomalee's 99 storage tanks, limiting sales to 25 tonnes per vessel and making the fuel expensive.

But once IOC activates the tanks and brings in petroleum products from its nearby Madras refinery on the Indian mainland, supplies will be augmented to 12,250 kilolitres, making fuel not only cheaper but increased to 200 tonnes per ship.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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