March 23, 2002	Saturday	Muharram 8, 1423

MOSCOW, March 22: India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes has postponed a four-day visit to Moscow that was due to begin on Sunday, the Indian embassy said here on Friday.

The postponement had “nothing to do with the bilateral front and was merely due to internal reasons,” an embassy spokesman said, adding that Fernandes’s visit to Moscow would be rescheduled in the near future.

Fernandes had been due to hold talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Ivanov about military cooperation and regional security, notably the anti-terror campaign in Afghanistan and India’s stand-off with Pakistan over Kashmir.

Strong allies during the Cold War, Russia remains India’s main defence supplier, although New Delhi has in recent years begun to look at other overseas markets and has significantly strengthened defence ties with the United States.

With China, India buys some 80 percent of the four billion dollars’ worth of weapons sold each year by Russia.—AFP