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Fradkov visiting Pakistan

Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW: Russia's Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov is visiting Pakistan this week in a sign of a new warming in frosty bilateral ties. It will be the first visit by a Russian Prime Minister to Pakistan in nearly four decades.

During a two-day visit, Mr. Fradkov will call on President Pervez Musharraf, hold talks with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, and address a meeting of businessmen of the two countries.

Mr. Fradkov's talks will focus on ways of stepping up trade and economic links between Russia and Pakistan, a Russian government source told the RIA Novosti wire service.

"Our economic interaction is very modest, but has very serious prospects," the source said. Bilateral trade stood at $411 million last year, up from $278 million a year earlier. Relations between Russia and Pakistan, frozen after Islamabad supported Afghan militants fighting Russian military intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980s, have been improving recently.

China built planes

Gen. Musharraf visited Russia in 2003, after which Russia sold Pakistan Mi-171 dual-use transport helicopters. Moscow appears to have closed its eyes to the supply of China-built JF-17 fighter planes powered by Russian engines, which began last month in violation of a Russian ban on the re-export of the engines.

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