Blair pushes India military jet sale

national | miscellaneous | news report Monday October 21, 2002 13:40 by Guardian

How Blair tried to sell jets and peace to India Ewen MacAskill and Luke harding in New Delhi

How Blair tried to sell jets and peace to India
Ewen MacAskill and Luke harding in New Delhi
Monday October 21, 2002
The Guardian

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,816049,00.html

Tony Blair personally lobbied the Indian prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to buy British Hawk jets during a recent Chequers meeting despite the continuing crisis with Pakistan over Kashmir.

Mr Blair's sales pitch at his country retreat comes at a time when India and Pakistan have hundreds of thousands of troops facing each other in the divided Himalayan region.

The prime minister, during informal talks last Saturday, urged Mr Vajpayee to work to reduce tension with Pakistan. But the Guardian has learned that Mr Blair combined this plea for peace with a sales pitch on behalf of Britain's biggest defence manufacturer, BAE Systems.