Russia, Argentina in Talks on Arms Deal

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Russia, Argentina in Talks on Arms Deal
By Anna Smolchenko
Staff Writer

Russia is negotiating its first-ever arms sales to Argentina in a deal that could see Russian arms being swapped for Argentine beef.

The news came less than two weeks after a controversial $3 billion arms deal between Russia and Venezuela that has been widely seen in Moscow as the trigger for U.S. sanctions on Russian defense firms.

The potential deal includes military helicopters, high-speed patrol boats and rifles, Interfax reported Wednesday, citing a source in the Russian military.

Selling arms to Argentina, led by President Nestor Kirchner — an ally of Venezuela's leftist leader Hugo Chavez — could risk further upsetting the United States. Chavez has sought to strengthen defense and trade ties between Latin American countries.

Buenos Aires daily La Nacion reported Monday that Russian officials had offered to swap weapons for Argentine food products.

A spokesman for state arms trader Rosoboronexport declined to say whether an arms deal was in the works, saying "the question is political."

Russian officials, including the deputy head of the Defense Ministry's defense procurement service, have met at least three times this year with Argentine Defense Minister Nilda Garre.

At the latest meeting on Aug. 2, Garre met with Yury Korchagin, Russia's ambassador in Buenos Aires, and discussed "technical-military cooperation," according to a statement from Garre's ministry.


Speaking by telephone from Buenos Aires on Wednesday, Korchagin said the meeting was "very good." He declined to give further details, but said a bilateral agreement in 2004 had laid the groundwork for military cooperation.

Garre's meeting with Korchagin was her third with Russian officials this year. On Jan. 18, she met with Korchagin, and on April 7 with Alexander Fomin, deputy head of the Defense Ministry's Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation, Garre's ministry said.

During the meeting, Korchagin said Russia already had military deals with Peru, Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela, among others, but said that, as far as Argentina was concerned, "in 123 years of relations between our countries, that path has not been trodden," the Argentine Defense Ministry's statement said.

Garre said Argentina had "maintained a low level of armament purchases in the last few years, due to, among other reasons, the economic situation of the country," the statement said.

The Federal Service for Military and Technical Cooperation declined to comment Wednesday. The service is responsible for Russia's defense deals.

Russia hopes to sell Argentina a wide range of weapons, including Mi-17 and Mi-35M helicopters, high-speed missile boats and patrol boats, Buk-M1-2 and Tunguska air defense systems, Igla shoulder-fired missiles, military vehicles and rifles, Interfax said.

If such a deal were to be struck, it might not be large, the Rosoboronexport spokesman said on condition of anonymity. "But the main thing is to begin," he said.

www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2006/08/10/041.html

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Russia Negotiating Arms Sales To Buenos Aires

Russia is negotiating arms sales to Argentina less than two weeks after angering Washington with a $3 billion deal to sell jets and helicopters to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Russian Ambassador Yuri Korchagin met with Argentine Minister of Defense Nilda Garre on Aug. 2 to express Moscow's willingness to "open a road to military and technical cooperation," according to a statement from Argentina's Ministry of Defense.

The statement said the Russian official presented a formal letter of intent, but an Argentine Defense Ministry spokesman declined to provide further details.

Miss Garre met previously on Jan. 18 and again on April 17 with the Russian ambassador, who was accompanied by Alexander Fomin, a ranking official within Russia's technical and military cooperation program.

A leading Argentine newspaper, La Nacion, reported on Monday that in those earlier meetings, the Russian officials raised the idea of trading Argentine beef, of which Russia is the largest importer, for military helicopters and armor-plated patrol boats.

Argentina has for years looked to acquire artillery-capable helicopters, but its 2001-2002 economic collapse scuttled those plans, and a Venezuelan buyout of Argentina's debt to the World Bank last year has done little to ease the burden.

But Mr. Chavez and Argentina's leftist president, Nestor Kirchner, have deepened their relations recently with new energy deals and a joint effort to create a South American development bank that would compete with the international lenders.

Officials have yet to offer a public response to the Russian proposal.

"Argentina has maintained in recent years a low level of military purchases because of the economic situation, among other reasons," Miss Garre told the ambassador, according to the official account of the meeting.

That account also said Mr. Korchagin talked of Russia's military ties with Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.

The United States has already registered its concerns about Russian arms sales to Venezuela, whose president has been using his country's oil wealth to counter American influence in the region.

On Friday, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on seven arms companies in Cuba, India, North Korea and Russia, including Moscow's state-owned Sukhoi, a maker of fighter aircraft, and its state-owned export firm, Rosoboronexport.

Washington said the sanctions, which will remain in place until July 28, 2008, were imposed because of transfers of military technology to Iran. But Russian media are linking the sanctions instead to Washington's anger over Rosoboronexport's deal with Mr. Chavez, announced on July 27.

That deal provides for the shipment of 24 Russian Su-30 fighter jets and 53 helicopters. Venezuela, itself hit with a U.S. arms embargo in May, had already contracted to buy 100,000 Russian AK-103 machine guns, part of what U.S. officials cast as a disproportionate and unjustified Venezuelan military buildup.

In July, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, or SIPRI, reported that military purchases in Latin America and the Caribbean spiked by 7.2 percent in 2005. The report says Venezuela experienced the third-largest yearly increase after Brazil and Chile.

During a visit to Moscow last month, Mr. Chavez praised Russia for defying U.S. objections to selling him arms and repeated an earlier proposal to combine the militaries of the five nations that make up Mercosur, the South American political and trade bloc.

"We must form a defensive military pact between the armies of the region with a common doctrine and organization," Mr. Chavez said July 5 in Caracas during a military parade attended by Mr. Kirchner.

During his Russia visit, Mr. Chavez said: "We must form the armed forces of Mercosur, merging warfare capabilities of the continent."

During a nationally televised program on Monday, Mr. Chavez said he intends to build a network of anti-aircraft missiles.

"We're going to acquire the most modern anti-aircraft defense system," Mr. Chavez said. "We're going to armor Venezuela." He suggested he saw the components of such a system during his visits to Russia, Belarus and Iran late last month.