On President al-Assad's visit to Moscow

The British daily the Times reported on Tuesday that the visit of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad to Moscow aimed at strengthening Syria's position before relaunching peace talks with Israel.

The report said the visit also aims at enabling Syria to obtain Russian weapons at a cost of 1.5 billion pounds sterling. The paper added that some 90% of Syrian military equipment is from the former Soviet Union and that President al-Assad intends to rearm his army with modern Russian weapons.

The paper said the Syrian president is particularly interested in SU 27 jet fighters, T-80 tanks and anti-tank missiles.

For its part, the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi daily said on Tuesday that the Russian military establishment and diplomats alike prefer to open a new page in the relations between the two countries. The paper quoted diplomatic sources in Beirut as saying that Russia is ready to provide Syria with a modern system of Russian warplanes, MiG 29 S.M.T., under production since December, 1998.