The Bush administration is seeking to organise war games with India that would pit for the first time the top United States fighter aircraft against a Russian-designed competitor being bought in large numbers by China. The joint training drill would be the first between the US and India involving fighter planes. A date and venue has still to be set, but the plan is to fly America's F-15C Eagle against the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker or its variant, the Su-30. A version of the highly manoeuvrable Su-27 is the most modern aircraft in China's inventory. 'We are still in the early planning stages of this exercise,' said Major James Law, a spokesman for the Hawaii-based headquarters of the US air force in the Pacific. 'We requested those aircraft because the US air force already participates in exercises with countries that have Jaguars, Mirage and MiGs - other aircraft the [Indian air force] flies.' Pakistan, which has fought three wars with India since partition in 1947, criticised the planned drill, with Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri saying: 'We would not be happy at all.' The fighter exercise would deepen co-operation on the security front between Indian and the US, which has notably flourished since the terrorist attacks on America on September 11, 2001. The India-US Defence Policy group - moribund since India and Pakistan's tit-for-tat 1998 nuclear test blasts and ensuing US sanctions - was revived in late 2001. The equivalent Pakistan-US body was revived last September following Pakistan's help in US-led operations against al-Qaeda and the Taleban in Afghanistan. India and China fought a brief border war in 1962, and a border dispute still becomes tense sometimes. Pakistan and China, on the other hand, have enjoyed warm ties; the US has alleged that China has transferred banned missile technology to Pakistan in the past. Pakistan, for its part, is said by US intelligence to have shipped uranium enrichment know-how to North Korea in exchange for ballistic missiles capable of reaching targets in India - a charge Pakistan denies. The planned US-Indian fighter exercise is 'standard practice for the US military with friends and allies around the world', said a Pentagon spokesman, navy Lieutenant-Commander Jeff Davis. 'We have significant military activities with both India and Pakistan, but neither is directed at the other.'