Alliot-Marie, who paid a private visit to the famous Taj Mahal after arriving here early Sunday, began the official leg of her trip Monday by meeting Indian Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani.

"The talks covered international, regional and bilateral issues," an Indian official said.

According to sources, Advani briefed the minister on the situation in disputed Kashmir, where latest separatist violence included a suicide car-bomb attack on a state-run radio station in Srinagar city on Saturday.

The French minister, who laid a wreath at a memorial to Indian soldiers killed in World War II and then received a military honours guard, also held one-on-one talks with her Indian counterpart George Fernandes, defence ministry spokesman P.K. Bandyopadhyay said.

The talks, he said, were "broadly" based on military-to-military cooperation.

The minister was scheduled to meet Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha before flying back to Paris later Monday.

The two sides were expected to discuss France's efforts to sell India six of its Scorpene submarines as well as Mirage fighter planes, but details of the discussions were not immediately available.

Bandyopadhyay also said military delegations from India and France met after the ministerial-level talks.

A French official travelling with the defence minister said the deal to sell the Scorpenes had been nearly finalised.

"We have reasons to believe that the deal could be finalised this summer," the delegate said late Sunday.

The two-billion-euro (2.1-billion-dollar) project involves the construction of six Scorpene submarines and a partial transfer of technology.

New Delhi plans to make the French-designed submarines at Mazagon Docks in western India as there is no proposal to purchase the submarines outright.

This year defence officials said the diesel-propelled Scorpenes, each weighing about 1,600 tonnes when in water, would be built over 15 years at Mazagon.

If the deal is signed, the first Indian-built Scorpene will be ready in 2010 and the sixth in 2016. However India is pressing Paris to stop the sales of French weapons to Pakistan before clinching the Scorpene deal.

India accuses rival Pakistan of being an "epicentre of terrorism" and of supporting Islamic guerrillas in Indian Kashmir.

New Delhi is also planning to buy around 130 multi-role fighters, and French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation is pursuing talks with India on selling a number of its Mirage 2000s/2000-5 warplanes.

Other rivals in the race are Lockheed Martin of the United States, which is offering its F-16 fighting Falcons, and Russia with its upgraded MiG-29 and Sukhoi-30MKI warplanes.

The French official said the discussions on the sale of the Mirage 2000s "were not at the same stage" as the Scorpene talks.

"We are following the project with great attention. We still need other discussions...," the official said.

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