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| Artists Impression of the Barracuda-class submarine |
CANBERRA, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) -- India's decision to cancel its option of purchasing three additional submarines from French shipbuilder DCNS will have no bearing on Australia's 40 billion U.S dollar order for 12 next-generation submarines, the nation's Defence Industry Minister said on Monday.
Christopher Pyne, the minister charged with overseeing the refresh of Australia's submarine fleet, said Australia won't be scared off by India's decision not to exercise its options with DCNS, in a 2 billion dollar blow to the French company.
Last month DCNS suffered a massive leak of more than 22,000 documents relating to its Scorpene-class submarines, which India among other nations had ordered. Australia has ordered 12 Barracuda-class subs from the shipbuilder, and Pyne said details of its subs were secure.
"The leak of those documents, they were not top secret documents which would obviously be very serious," Pyne told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Monday.
"The (Scorpene-class) submarine built by DCNS is their export model of submarine. It's the same model of submarine bought by several different countries around the world," he said.
"It bears no relation at all to the Barracuda submarine which is being built for Australia, which is a unique submarine."
Read the full story at Xinhua