Agencies/Monitoring Desk
MOSCOW - Pakistan and Russia are in talks on sales of helicopters, air defence systems and modernised tanks, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told Sputnik on Wednesday.
Pakistan is eyeing to modernise its Air Force, Asif said on the sidelines of the fifth Moscow Conference on International Security.
"We are in touch with Russia on different types of weapons such as helicopters. We are even considering the Russian air defence system and advanced tanks. We are also exploring possibility to update and modernise our Air Force," Asif said.
According to Asif, Pakistan is seeking to expand its cooperation with Russia in different spheres, including regional security and counter-terrorism.
"We are looking forward to expanding our cooperation with Russia in all facets of our relationship but mostly we are looking forward to increasing our defence cooperation. We also look forward to working closely on regional peace and in the fight against terrorism," the minister added.
Military ties between the two countries date back to the 1960s, when Pakistan imported defence equipment from the Soviet Union. In November 2014, Russia and Pakistan signed a deal on cooperation between their defence ministries.
The agreement was followed by a contract for the sale of four Mi-35M transport and attack helicopters to Pakistan, signed in August 2015.
PALESTINIANS, KASHMIRIS BEING SUBJECTED TO WORST ATROCITIES: Minister for Defence and Water and Power Khawaja Muhammad Asif has said that while Israel continues killing Palestinians with impunity and keeps expanding its settlement in the occupied land, the Palestinians continue to suffer not only in the West Bank and Gaza but also as refugees in different parts of the world.
Similarly, the people of Indian Held Kashmir (IHK) are also being subjected to worst atrocities in their quest for self-determination promised to them by the UN Security Council, he said while speaking at International Security Conference on Terrorism.
He said that Armed Forces of Pakistan have singularly achieved within less than two years what allied forces failed to achieve in more than 13 years in Afghanistan, said a Press release received here.
"We are very disturbed to see that world body politics has not learned from its past mistakes of interventionist policies of regime change and use of Non-State Actors as vehicles of violence," he said.
He said after the failure of such policies in Iraq and Libya, it was hoped that same mistakes will not be repeated in dealing with the Syrian crisis.
RUSSIA READY TO JOIN AFGHAN TALKS
Russia is ready to join stuttering peace talks on Afghanistan if interests of all parties taking part in them are respected, including Afghanistan itself, Interfax news agency cited Russian envoy on Afganistan Zamir Kabulov as saying on Wednesday in Moscow.
Russia considers inefficient the current format of the talks, sponsored by the four-power group of Pakistan, Afghanistan, the United States and China, and does not plan to join in, although Moscow is ready to create a new format, he said.
The Afghan government refused to take part in the talks just a week after a massive bomb blast in Kabul killed at least 64 people and wounded hundreds on April 19.
