MOSCOW, Nov 12: Russia and India agreed on Monday to boost defence ties by jointly developing a new military transport aircraft but they were unable to sign a major nuclear deal because of international restrictions against New Delhi.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed to settle years of wrangling over $1 billion of debts owed to Moscow since Soviet times and use them to develop the transport aircraft.

Singh said both sides were working on a deal that will allow Russia to build four more reactors at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. But no agreement was signed.

“We paid special attention to cooperation in the sphere of nuclear cooperation, to the sphere of military-technical cooperation,” Putin told journalists.

“Defence cooperation is one of the pillars of our strategic partnership,” Singh said. “We share similar world views on most of the regional and global issues.”

Russia is competing with the United States for influence in India, which the Kremlin sees as a growing partner in Asia.

But India, which wants to buy billions of dollars of weapons as it rearms, has been unhappy with hold-ups on major Russian arms contracts, including a three-year delay to a $1.5 billion aircraft carrier modernisation.

Putin brushed aside any talk of a chill in relations, saying he hoped Singh would feel the warmth of Russia’s welcome despite the freezing Moscow winter. Singh said talks were superb.

India is one of two top buyers of Russian arms. Together with China, it accounts for most of Russia arms sales, which Moscow says will hit a record $7 billion this year.

Russia’s Kommersant newspaper, quoting a Russian aircraft industry executive, said the debt would be used to finance construction of the MTA/Ilyushin-214 multi-purpose military transport aircraft.—Agencies