The government plans to buy 48 tanks and 14 support vehicles from Poland, Defence Minister Najib Tun Razak said Monday.

The purchase would likely be linked to the sale of Malaysian commodities to Poland, Najib told reporters after talks with visiting Polish Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz.

Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad first announced the decision to buy Polish tanks during a visit to Warsaw in March, but no details were given of the number involved.

Polish Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said then that Warsaw had offered 64 tanks and armored vehicles for 250 million dollars, and the sum could reach up to 300 million dollars with supplementary equipment and services.

Najib said Monday the first batch of tanks would be delivered after about a year.

Fears of arms race

"We will start with our commercial discussion soon to determine the cost of the 48 tanks and 14 support vehicles to be acquired from that country," he was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.

"We will try our best to solve this matter in three months," he said.

Malaysia has this year already ordered British and Russian missile systems worth 364 million dollars, agreed to buy its first three submarines from France and is considering a deal to buy Russian Sukhoi SU-30 fighter jets.

But officials have denied the shopping spree is aggressive and dismissed fears of a regional arms race, saying the weapons were for defence not attack.

"We are not competing. We are doing it our way. It's part of our modernisation programme," Najib said earlier this year. AFP