ဗုိလ္ခ်ဳပ္ျမင့္လွဳိင္ဦးေဆာင္တဲ့အဖြဲ ့ျမန္မာနိုင္ငံသားေတြကိုသတ္ဖုိ ့ရုရွားၽမွာလက္နက္၀ယ္ေနၾက

Myanmar generals visit arms maker in Russia
By Dmitry Solovyov
362 words
12 October 2007
19:04
Reuters News
English
(c) 2007 Reuters Limited

MOSCOW, Oct 12 (Reuters) - A Myanmar military delegation visited Russia on
Friday, a day after the Asian state's military junta was deplored by the United
Nations for crushing pro-democracy protests.

Two leading Russian newspapers said the delegation was discussing buying missile
systems from Russia, which has in the past sold fighter planes to Myanmar and
has said it believes sanctions against the junta are premature.

A Russian Air Force spokesman said the delegation was headed by
Lieutenant-General Myint Hlaing, commander of Myanmar's air defence forces. The
spokesman declined to specify whether the visitors were buying arms.

Russia's Defence Ministry said on its Web site ( www.mil.ru ) the delegation
would visit an air force academy and the Sokol design bureau in Kazan in the
autonomous region of Tatarstan.

Sokol specialises in building drones -- remotely piloted planes -- according to
the Russian military press.

The Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers said the southeast Asian nation was
interested in buying BUK-M1 and TOR-M1 missile systems to modernise its air
defences.

Hlaing arrived on Thursday, just as the U.N. Security Council adopted a
statement deploring Myanmar's crushing of pro-democracy protests.

The U.N. statement urged the junta, which has ruled for 45 years, to release all
political prisoners and prepare for genuine dialogue with opposition leader Aung
San Suu Kyi.

In 2001, Russia sold 10 MiG-29 fighters to Myanmar, which is also in talks with
Moscow to build a nuclear research reactor in Myanmar.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month he regretted that civilians!
died in the crackdown on anti-government protesters in Myanmar, but said it was
"premature" to talk about sanctions.

"Pragmatism in relations with the states violating human rights is turning into
an element of economic rivalry between new big players -- China, India and
Russia -- with Western firms which sometimes are forced to tear up lucrative
contracts under pressure from public opinion," Vedomosti wrote.