NEW DELHI, Dec 3: Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived here on Tuesday partly to boost Moscow’s flagging arms sales to a major client but also to promote a recently articulated Chinese position that India and Pakistan should hold talks to rein in Islamic extremists who threaten all states of the region, official sources said.

Putin’s arrival in the evening was preceded by a round of talks between Russian Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Ilya Klebanov, who has been camping in Delhi, and Indian Defence George Fernandes. Significantly, Klebanov is also joint chairman of the Indo-Russian Military Technology Committee.

There have been reports that the two sides are close to an arms deal in which Russia would offer an ageing aircraft carrier with one, possibly even two, nuclear submarines to India.

Although Putin has carefully and possibly deliberately placed himself to be seen on India’s in a general equation vis-a-vis Pakistan, his arrival in New Delhi from several ranking meetings with Chinese leaders, including President Jiang Zemin, is being seen as an indication that there would be an effort to nudge Indian leaders to take a more agreeable position towards Islamabad, diplomats said.

Senior Chinese officials have recently told visiting Indian journalists that Muslim extremists accused of attacking civilian targets in India were not different from those seeking to destablise the religiously moderate elements in the Pakistan establishment, including President Pervez Musharraf.

Diplomats watching Putin’s visit to China and India said the issue of Chechen guerillas and their suspected allies elsewhere in the region, including Pakistan and Kashmir, would almost certainly dominate the thrust of the discussions. Russia and China have both encouraged India and Pakistan to resume talks and that will be recalled again during the visit.

“President Putin has sought a role as a peacemaker between India and Pakistan. He cannot afford to be seen to be leaning too heavily on any one side,” one diplomat told Dawn. He was referring to a meeting Putin had with President Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee during a Central Asian conference on security recently at a time when the two countries were bracing to go to war.

Star News said while the spotlight would remain on Putin and his statements of solidarity with India, Russia’s need for Indian arms contracts and India’s dependence on comparatively cheap Russian weaponry is driving the relationship between the two countries.

Russia’s arms exports have fallen from over $23bn per year in the late 1980s, to barely $3 billion per year. And almost a third of this is in arms sales to India, that imports more than 70 per cent of its foreign arms from Russia.

“After wrapping up multi-billion-dollar deals for the supply of Sukhoi-30 fighters and Talwar class destroyers, Russia is lobbying hard for fresh deals worth up to another eight billion dollars with India,” Star News said.

This includes Admiral Gorshkov for up to a billion dollar. Two squadrons of MiG-29 fighters that could be worth another four billion dollars. Though the price of two nuclear submarines is not known, it is strongly believed that it must also be in billions.