The announcement came as Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee Friday ended a six-day visit to China, the first by an Indian premier in a decade.

A three-day search and rescue exercise, including frontline warships from both countries, was in the offing, Desilva said here according to the Press Trust of India news agency.

He said the date and venue had not yet been fixed.

Indian and Chinese warships have been making calls at ports in each other's countries as relations have warmed, but it will be the first joint operation in recent times.

India had given a proposal to hold anti-piracy exercises in the Malacca Straits, similar to those conducted with Indonesian and US warships in the region.

But Chinese officials said their anti-piracy operations were carried out by by border guard vessels, and the two countries have decided to hold search and rescue exercises instead, Desilva said.

The Indian and Chinese armies have recently begun interacting by sending officers to each other's military academies.

Vajpayee's China visit this week and Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji's visit to India in January 2002 have boosted relations between the two countries, which fought a brief but bloody war in 1962.

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