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Russia pips US as top arms seller
Thom Shanker
[ 29 Oct, 2006 2301hrs ISTAGENCIES ]

WASHINGTON: Russia surpassed the United States in 2005 as the leader in weapons deals with the developing world, and its new agreements included selling $700 million in surface-to-air missiles to Iran and eight new aerial refueling tankers to China, according to a new Congressional study.

Those weapons deals were part of the highly competitive global arms bazaar in the developing world that grew to $30.2 billion in 2005, up from $26.4 billion in 2004. It is a market that the United States has regularly dominated.

Russia's agreements with Iran are not the biggest part of its total sales - India and China are its principal buyers. But the sales to improve Iran's air-defense system are particularly troubling to the United States because they would complicate the task of Pentagon planners should the president order airstrikes on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities.

The Bush administration has vowed a diplomatic solution in dealing with Iran. But as UN diplomats argue over potential sanctions against Iran for its nuclear ambitions, Russian officials have expressed reluctance to vote for the most stringent economic sanctions, partly owing to Moscow's extensive trade relations with Iran.
Russia's weapons sales to China also worry Pentagon planners. Although China has joined the United States in partnership to press for a resumption of six-party talks to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programme after its recent test, Taiwan remains a potential flash point between Beijing and Washington.

The report, entitled "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations," found that Russia's arms agreements with the developing world totaled $7 billion in 2005, an increase from its $5.4 billion in sales in 2004.

That figure surpassed the United States' annual sales agreements to the developing world for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. France ranked second in arms transfer agreements.