Iraq will renegotiate the 4.2- billion-U.S.-dollar deals that it initially agreed with Russia to purchase the latter's weapons due to its concerns of corruption, a spokesman said on Monday.

"The Iraqi government has not signed any deals to purchase arms from Russia so far, but the process of buying arms from Russia is going on because Iraq needs such weapons to protect itself," the government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement.

"The Iraqi National Security Council has decided on Sunday to fully renegotiate with Russia on the purchase of arms and that a new committee had been formed for this purpose," Dabbagh said.

Earlier, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's media advisor Ali al- Mousawi told reporters that Maliki decided to renegotiate the agreements of the arms package with Moscow after he was informed about possible corruption in the contract.

In October, Maliki agreed with Moscow to purchase Russian weapons, which would make Russia the second-largest arms supplier to Iraq after the United States. During the administration of Saddam Hussein, Iraq was one of the biggest buyer of Russian arms.