NEW DELHI: Ahead of the two-plus-two dialogue with the US next week, India reaffirmed its commitment to economic relations with Russia saying the government is focusing on stabilising these “established” ties in the current circumstances when Russia is facing international sanctions.
The government also ruled out any international pressure on India to cut down trade ties with Russia as it said the two countries were working to finalise a payment mechanism that will allow them to carry out trade. While the US doesn’t want any “rapid acceleration” of Indian oil imports from Russia, the government has maintained India’s legitimate energy transactions should not be politicised.
Talks of sanctions going on but it’s not on entire trade. A lot of trade is going on, trade of oil too. Our focus is to maintain and stabilise our established economic relations with Russia,’’ said MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi, adding India had been very open about its ties with Russia. The spokesperson was replying to queries related to statements by the US warning countries of consequences if they worked to circumvent US sanctions on Russia.
The government said foreign minister S Jaishankar and defence minister Rajnath Singh will lead the Indian delegation at the fourth India-US 2+2 dialogue on April 11.
The Ukraine situation is likely to dominate the agenda for the dialogue. Jaishankar will separately meet his US counterpart Secretary Blinken and is also scheduled to meet senior members of the US administration.
The Open Magazine of India by Artmotion Network (https://magazine.armotion.com/)
