Moscow rolls out red carpet

Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee arrived in Moscow today to a red carpet welcome. He was received at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport by Russian Pr...

Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee arrived in Moscow today to a red carpet welcome. He was received at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special representative, Deputy PM in charge of defence industry Boris Alyoshin. During his three-day visit, Vajpayee will stay at Hotel Baltschug Kempinski, overlooking the Kremlin.

Putin will host a one-to-one dinner meeting with Vajpayee tonight immediately after his arrival, followed by delegation level parleys on Wednesday, in the Kremlin.

The two sides will sign about ten agreements at the end of the summit level talks. ‘‘The established practice of annual summit meetings has been very useful in regularly reviewing the progress made in the developing our multifaceted cooperation,’’ Vajpayee said.

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Putin and Vajpayee have a number of urgent issues on which they want to exchange opinions in the framework of strategic partnership between the two countries. The two sides are expected to decide at the political level on some defence items, including acquisition of Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov.

‘‘Military-technical cooperation, trade and economic relations, and contacts in the scientific sphere, are to be among the subjects of discussion,’’ Putin’s top aide on foreign affairs Sergei Prikhodko said.

On the Gorshkov deal, Indian ambassador to Moscow, Krishnan Raghunath said discussions were continuing. ‘‘It’s a very big transaction. It’s a major decision for us to buy an aircraft carrier. The price and all the technical details have to be harmonised,’’ he said. ‘‘We are nearing discussion, which is going, proceeding very well.”

He said there were obviously ‘‘sticky points’’ as in any major deal. ‘‘But these are to be sorted out and they can be sorted out. And most of them have been sorted out.”