Jakarta – Indonesia is considering buying up to 12 fighter bombers from Russia, and the nation's defense minister will go to the US next year to push for the lifting of a ban on weapon sales, officials said Wednesday.

The embargo and a resulting lack of spare parts has led to the breakdown of many of Indonesia's American-made weapons. The ban was imposed in 1999 after Indonesian troops and their proxy militias killed nearly 1,500 people in East Timor.

Jakarta has made repeated efforts to have the embargo lifted. It gained the support of the Bush administration, which sees the Indonesian armed forces as a key ally in the fight against terror, but the US Congress has rejected the move.

"I will make a trip to Washington, D.C., in March in an effort to reopen military ties with the United States," Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono said on the sidelines of a military hardware expo. "If this is not fruitful, we will consider acquiring military equipment from other countries."

But the director general of strategic defense, Maj. Gen. Sudrajat, said the country was already considering buying up to 12 high-performance fighter bombers from Russia. Last year, it bought four Russian-built Sukhoi SU-27 long-range fighters. He wouldn't say when Indonesia may buy the new planes or how much the deal would be worth.

Indonesia has sought to forge ties with possible alternative weapons suppliers because of the US embargo.

Officials said the Indo Defense 2004 Expo and Forum, the biggest military expo in Indonesia since the fall of ex-dictator Suharto in 1998, gives the country an opportunity to find suppliers to replace obsolete equipment and bolster its military forces, which are battling separatist rebellions at both ends of the country.

The expo runs until November 27 and features 250 companies from 24 countries hawking fighter jets, tanks, weaponry and ammunition.