India, Russia Sign Sweeping Arms Deals, Defense Accord

India, Russia Sign Sweeping Arms Deals, Defense Accord

India signed a series of multi-million dollar arms contracts with Russia Wednesday to acquire frontline tanks, fighter jets and an aircraft carrier.

The two sides also inked a wide-ranging accord on military and technical cooperation and another agreement on cooperation in "peaceful uses of nuclear energy."

The weapons contracts involved the licensed production in India of Sukhoi SU-30M fighters and the export and licensed production of T-90 battle tanks.

A third contract was for a Russian aircraft carrier named Admiral Gorchkov, which Moscow is offering for free, with India picking up the tab for a complete refit.

"All (the) deals were finalised and signed Wednesday morning," said Samir Sinha, information officer at the Indian defence ministry.

The signing of the contracts had been delayed amid last-minute haggling over prices, and Sinha gave no details of the final value of the deals, which initial estimates had put at well over 1 billion dollars.

An Indian military source said the pact on the T-90 tanks had been stalled for some time because "there was a price differential of about 150 million dollars," adding that New Delhi was expected to buy about 310 tanks.

The Press Trust of India quoted unidentified officials as saying 150 tanks would be bought outright and the rest assembled in India under licence. They said the deal could be more worth than 450 million dollars and the first batch of the tanks due to arrive "in the next few months."

The Indian military source said the 30,000-tonne aircraft carrier, Admiral Gorchkov, would cost about 750 million dollars to refurbish while its fleet arm of MiG-29K jets would cost about 1.2 billion dollars.

India totted up a mountain of debt through its heavy arms purchases from the former Soviet Union, and still owes an estimated 200 billion rupees (4.5 billion dollars).

Russian equipment has continued to provide the backbone of India's armed forces since the end of the Cold War but recently New Delhi has been looking at other markets in Europe and Israel.

The accord signed by Indian Defence Minister George Fernandes and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov envisaged the creation of an Indo-Russian commission on military-technical cooperation.

The commission will be headed by Fernandes and Klebanov.

The pact on the peaceful use of nuclear energy was significant given India's difficulties in acquiring technology transfers because of sanctions imposed after the country's 1998 nuclear tests.

The showpiece of Indo-Russian nuclear cooperation is the Kudankulam atomic power station being set up by the state-run Nuclear Power Corp. in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

According to the terms of the agreement, all major equipment and materials including fuel for the entire life of the power station will be supplied by Russia.

Putin will visit India's premier nuclear research centre during his trip to Bombay on Thursday.