Indians are opposed to war

Mr Putin told Yashwant Sinha that their nations were working towards closer ties through political, economic and military co-operation.

Mr Sinha is in Moscow to discuss the Iraqi and Korean crises and other issues of bilateral co-operation.

Mr Putin said he was also pleased with progress on two nuclear power reactors that Russia is helping to build in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Earlier, Mr Sinha met the Russian defence minister, Sergei Ivanov, who said Moscow and Delhi shared similar or identical views on global security issues.

Iraq

Mr Sinha's two-day visit is being seen in Delhi as another indication of increasingly close ties between the two countries.

India has played a low-key role in international diplomacy over Iraq so far, and has broadly supported the US position.

But on the eve of his foreign minister's visit to Moscow, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee strongly rejected a military solution for Iraq.

The BBC's Adam Mynott in Delhi says this puts India much more in line with Russian thinking.

Regional tension

Russia is the largest supplier of military hardware to India.

During his stay, Yashwant Sinha will also discuss the war on terror, the North Korean nuclear issue and other subjects touching on relations between India and Russia.

His visit also comes hot on the heels of a visit to Russia by the Pakistani President, General Pervez Musharraf.

It was the first visit by a Pakistani leader in more than three decades - during the Cold War, Islamabad was allied to the US, while Russia and India had a close relationship.

But Russia appears keen to help smooth over tensions between the two nuclear South Asian neighbours, especially over the disputed region of Kashmir.

"The situation in South Asia will be given special attention at the talks in the context of the need to reduce tension in the Indo-Pakistani relations," a Russian foreign ministry spokesman told reporters in Moscow.

Mr Vajpayee is due to visit Moscow in May.