New Delhi: As part of measures to boost strategic defence ties with Vietnam, India will supply vital spares of Russian origin Petya class warships and send an expert team to train army of the country.

The announcement to supply 5000 essential spares, which would enable Vietnam to again operationalise its Russian anti-submarine warships, was made by Defence Minister A K Antony after a meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart General Phung Quang Thanh in Hanoi. Antony, on his first visit to Vietnam, also said a four member army team would go to Hanoi in the first half of next year to train Vietnamese army on conduct of UN Peacekeeping operations.

The two countries also agreed to set up a Joint Working group to frame to form a framework for boosting further defence cooperation, a defence ministry release said here. Vietnam, which has been a close ally of India, evinced interest to take Indian help in application of information technology in defence and technical support to the country's navy.

The Vietnamese Defence Minister also suggested increase in Joint Naval and Military level exercises between the two countries.

Source : PTI