Vajpayee holds summit talks with Putin

The two leaders first held one-on-one talks in which the Prime Minister's Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra was also present.

At the outset, the Prime Minister thanked Putin for hosting a private dinner on Tuesday night for him at his dacha (farmhouse) on the outskirts of the city. The two leaders were later joined by their respective delegations for detailed talks on various issues of mutual interest.

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The two leaders held informal talks late Tuesday when Putin hosted Vajpayee for dinner at his country residence at Novo Ogaryovo, just outside Moscow, stressing the importance of regular top-level meetings between their two countries.

Vajpayee's three-day visit, accompanied by several ministers and nearly 100 businessmen, is his second Russian trip this year, and oficials in both capitals have been at pains to stress the importance of maintaining the rhythm of their contacts.

Russia remains the country's largest supplier of military hardware, more than 10 years after the end of the Cold War, accounting for more than 70 percent of army, air force and navy equipment.

Apart from the customary defence issues, officials are keen to raise the level of trade which, at 1.87 billion dollars (1.63 billion euros) in the first seven months of 2003, is considered unnaturally low for such long-standing allies.

Quoting a senior Indian chamber of commerce official, the RIA Novosti news agency said businessmen in New Delhi were hoping that trade with Russia could reach five billion dollars a year by 2005.

Sergei Prikhodko, deputy head of the Kremlin administration, told the ITAR-TASS news agency that Putin and Vajpayee planned to discuss military-technical cooperation, trade and economic relations, and contacts in the scientific sphere in addition to international issues.