PARIS, Aug 29: The upward swing in Indo-French ties has seen France emerge as one of the leading arms suppliers to India with New Delhi actively negotiating to buy Alpha jet trainers and additional Mirage-2000 fighter jets for the Indian Air Force.A high-level committee on defence held negotiations with the French side recently focusing on acquiring military technology. India would soon acquire 10 Mirage-2000 fighter jets to replace the planes lost during training missions, diplomatic sources said.French made Mirage-2000 jets played a stellar role in smashing Pakistani intruder's bunkers during the recent Kargil conflict. Besides their accuracy, the modern-avionics system in the jets helped jam Pakistani radars which tried to track down IAF planes, they said.While the decision to acquire the latest version of the Mirage-2000 fighter jets was taken a while ago, the defence ministry recently said that it has short-listed French Alpha jets along with the British Hawk 100 as the Advanced Jet Trainer(AJT) for the IAF.Between 1991 and early 1999, the IAF lost over 70 pilots and nearly 170 aircraft, including three mig-29s, four Mirage-2000 THs and around 15 Jaguars. Though a decision to acquire 66 AJTs were taken 15 years ago, the Kargil crisis pushed the acquisition to the top priority, the sources said.
