Click to play videoChennai: Nuclear-powered American aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, which brings with it a massive strikeforce of about 80 aircraft, docked near Chennai on Monday morning.
Its arrival has been preceded by protests from political parties in India and the ship's commanders' refusal to clarify whether it indeed is carrying nuclear weapons has complicated matters further.
“It is general US policy not to carry nuclear weapons aboard ships, aircraft or submarines. But I can’t discuss the absence or presence of those weapons on board,” Commanding Officer of USS Nimitz, Michael Manazir said.
The ship codenamed – CVN 68 – has been in service for more than 32 years and its commanders say that it has never had a nuclear leak.
But it’s not the fear of an accident that is keeping the Nimitz three kilometers off the Chennai coast. “My ship is too big to get into the port. I evaluated that the channel is big enough but the turning basin is too small for me to maneuver the carrier,” Manazir said.
For decades aircraft carriers have been instruments of US foreign policy, the Nimitz, in fact, comes to India after an assignment of intimidation off the coast of Iran.
Its arrival also in effect marks a full circle in Indo-US ties. Thirty-six years ago, in December, just days before India's victory over Pakistan in the 1971 war, the USS enterprise came into the Bay of Bengal as a threat to India.
(For updates you can share with your friends, follow IBNLive on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest)
More on IBNLive Right Now
TOP NEWS
MOST SHARED
PHOTOGALLERY
