Agence France-Presse,
Moscow: Moscow wants Algiers to buy Russian military hardware worth some four billion dollars (3.4 billion euros) in exchange for cancelling the country's debts, Russian newspapers reported Thursday ahead of President Vladimir Putin's visit to Algeria.
Contracts for 40 MiG-29 and 28 Sukhoi-30MK fighter jets, as well as 16 Yak-130 planes, eight S-300 PMU air defence missile systems and 40 T-90 tanks “have practically been signed,” the Vedomosti business daily quoted a source close to Russia's arms export agency Rosoboronexport as saying.
Vedomosti said the contracts should be sealed after Putin's visit to Algiers.
The deal would be “the biggest military contract signed by post-Soviet Russia,” said Dmitry Vasiliyev, an expert from Russia's Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies.
The Kommersant daily said Russia had vowed to cancel Algeria's debt to Moscow of around 4.7 billion dollars — mainly a collection of Soviet-era debts for industrial and military hardware — if Algeria agreed to sign the deal.
But the daily said there were “complications” in talks between Russia and Algeria.
Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, who travelled to Algiers last week, came back without a firm undertaking by Algeria to buy the hardware, sparking Russian “irritation” and Putin's decision to cut short the visit “from two days to six hours,” Kommersant said.
The Algerian presidency on Wednesday announced that Putin's visit, initially expected to begin on Thursday, had been delayed by 24 hours without explaining the reasons for the change.
The Russian leader is expected to arrive on Friday and leave later the same day.
