Iraq has scrapped an arms deal worth 4.2 billion dollars with Russia a month after it was struck, an Iraqi lawmaker said in remarks published on Saturday, dpa reported.
"The (Iraqi) prime minister has formed a new committee to negotiate with Russia for buying more sophisticated arms than the ones in the cancelled deal," Hakem al-Zamali, a member of the Iraqi parliament's security and defence committee, told the government-owned newspaper Al Sabah.
Russia announced in early October it had agreed to sell to Iraq 4.2 billion dollars worth of weaponry, making it the second biggest arms supplier to Iraq after the United States.
The announcement coincided with a visit by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to Moscow.
The cancelled sale was to include MiG-29 fighter jets, Mi-28NE attack helicopters, and Pantsir-S1E air-defence systems, according to Russian media reports.