Qatar has agreed to buy 24 Dassault Aviation-built Rafale fighter jets in a deal worth 6.3 billion euros, the French government said yesterday, as the Gulf Arab state looks to boost its military firepower amid regional instability.Tensions in the Middle East with conflicts in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Libya, as well as fears of Iran's growing influence in the area, have fuelled a desire across the Gulf Arab states to modernize their military hardware. The contract, the third this year for Dassault after deals to sell fighter jets to Egypt and India, also includes MBDA missiles, and the training of 36 Qatari pilots and 100 technicians by the French army, a French Defence Ministry official said. "The president spoke to Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, who confirmed his desire to buy 24 Rafale combat planes," President Francois Hollande's office said in a statement. Hollande will travel to Doha on May 4 to sign the contract before heading to Saudi Arabia as an honorary guest at a summit of Gulf Arab leaders.The Rafale sales have lifted French arms exports this year to about 15 billion euros and have been a welcome boost for Dassault, which had been under increasing pressure to sell the plane overseas after years of failures.The French government said last year that it would slow the pace at which it takes delivery of Rafale jets to just 26 over the next five years instead of 11 every year. Dassault is also in talks aimed at supplying 16 of the multi-role combat jets to Malaysia and has resumed discussions over potential fighter sales to another Gulf Arab state, the United Arab Emirates, the official said.With this sale, French arms exports already exceed 15 billion euros ($16.8 billion) this year, a defense official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, according to Reuters. Qatar becomes the third buyer of France's delta-winged Rafale, manufactured by Dassault Aviation.Earlier this year, Egypt bought 24 Rafales in a 5.2-billion-euro ($5.8-billion) deal negotiated in just three months, prompting hopes in Paris that the agreement would act as a catalyst to unblock hoped-for sales to other countries, according to AFP.India then followed suit this month by announcing the order of 36 Rafale jets during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to France. The two sides had already been engaged in years of tortuous, exclusive negotiations for the sale of 126 Rafales, but these had been bogged down over cost and New Delhi's insistence on assembling a portion of the high-tech planes in India. So India, whose airforce is in dire need of new jets to update its ageing fleet, made a quick order for 36 planes while negotiations continue on finalising the initial 126-jet agreement.Dassault is also involved in talks with the United Arab Emirates, and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has recently hinted that these are evolving "in the right direction." The French presidency said yesterday the new deal with Qatar was a source of "great satisfaction."