Argentina likely to ink a deal of 15 HAL Tejas MK1A during its Defence Minister visit to India

NewsBharati 18-Jul-2023 13:30:39 PM

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Argentina and India are close to concluding an agreement to supply 15 HAL TEJAS fighter planes to the Latin American country.

Apart from LCA TEJAS MK1A, talks on Potential Sale of HAL LCH(Light combat Helicopter) are also on with Argentine Airforce as per sources in Zee Business.

According to this report, which cites anonymous Indian government sources, the deal might be for roughly US$1.05 billion ( 8,675 crores) and will be revealed during Argentina's defense minister's visit to Delhi on July 17, 2023.

#HAL के लिए बड़ी खबर

🔸भारत-अर्जेंटीना के बीच डिफेंस डील होने की उम्मीद

🔸अर्जेंटीना के साथ 15 HAL तेजस फाइटर जेट की डील संभव

-सूत्रों के हवाले से खबर@AnuveshRath #TejasFighterJet #Argentina #DefenceDeal pic.twitter.com/IN9WV1hONQ
— Zee Business (@ZeeBusiness) July 14, 2023

However, it should be emphasized that no official source has corroborated this information.

Argentina had already been hunting for new combat aircraft for some years.

Since being devastated by the British armed forces during the Falklands War in 1982, the Argentine Air Force has experienced little equipment modernization and improvement.

Argentina retired its last Mirage-III fighter jets in 2015, and as of 2023, the only combat-capable aircraft it operates are a small number of domestically produced FMA IA-63 Pampa trainers and a small number of Lockheed Martin A-4AR Fighting-Hawk, a modernized version of the iconic A-4 Skyhawk, which first flew in the 1950s.

The Argentine Air Force is in such disarray that when President Barack Obama visited the nation in 2016, the US had to send its own F-16 fighter planes to accompany Air Force One since no appropriate aircraft could be located.

Efforts to acquire contemporary combat aircraft have frequently been delayed by a UK ban on any Western models including British-made components, given Argentina's refusal to surrender its claim to the Falkland Islands.

Other possibilities, such as purchasing used Sukhoi Su-24s from Russia or Chinese-Pakistani JF-17 Thunders, have been proposed in recent years but have yet to materialize.

The HAL TEJAS is a single-engined, multi-role combat aircraft that first flew with the Indian Air Force in 2015 and is now available in both land-based and naval variants.