New Delhi, April 12: Defence Minister A K Antony said on Saturday that India would never be a part of any military alliance though there would be defence co-operation with several countries, Press Trust of India said.

It quoted Mr Anatony as saying in the southern city ofThiruvananthapuram that the country would continue to stick to the basic tenets of the Nehruvian foreign and defence policies which were moulded since the days of the freedom struggle and as such the country would not join any military alliance under any circumstances.

He was inaugurating the ‘Think Tank on Defence and Foreign Policies’ set up by the Kerala University under its V K Krishna Menon Study Centre for International Relations in the Marxist-ruled Kerala state.

Countering the Left attack on the UPA government’s foreign and strategic policies, Mr Antony said in the changed global scenario, India would have to enter into defence co-operations with several countries but that would not mean that it was diluting its time-tested foreign and defence policies.