NEW DELHI, Apr 6: The External affairs minister S Jaishankar met his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday and reviewed the bilateral ties and economic cooperation between New Delhi and Moscow and discussed Russian president Vladimir Putin’s expected visit to India later this year.
The two leaders also issued a joint statement in which Jaishankar said the two leaders discussed the connectivity including the International North-South Transport Corridor and Chennai-Vladivostok Maritime Corridor.
Lavrov is on a two-day visit to India.
“We assess positively our economic cooperation noting new opportunities in the Russian far east. We spoke of connectivity including the International North-South Transport Corridor and Chennai-Vladivostok Maritime Corridor,” Jaishankar told the reporters.
He added that much of the discussions covered the preparations for President Putin’s visit for an annual summit later this year. “Our bilateral cooperation remains energetic and forward-looking. We talked about the longstanding partnership in nuclear space and defence sectors,” the external affairs minister said.
“We also found an appetite for greater investment in each other by both the countries. Russian support for our Gaganyaan programme has progressed for which deeply appreciate. Our defence requirement in the past year was expeditiously addressed,” he added.
On being asked if India considering the possibility of acquiring additional S-400 regiments from Russia, Jaishankar said, “We didn’t get into any specific discussion. That is the responsibility of a different body headed by our defence ministers, which is due to meet at end of the year.”
The foreign minister said they discussed developments from Afghanisation and its impact on India. “One question on which we spent some time is the unfolding developments in and around Afghanistan. For India, what happens in Afghanistan impacts its security directly.”
The Russian leader said India and Moscow have decided to strengthen ties on the military front. “We didn’t discuss statements from USA. Instead, we confirmed that we are going to deepen our military cooperation. We have a governmental committee on military-technical co-operations that has its own plans,” Lavrov said in the joint statement.
Russia, Lavrov said, “has no plans to sign a military alliance with China.”
“We also discussed prospective and additional manufacturing of Russian military equipment in India within the concept ‘Made in India’. So here, I didn’t see any changes from our Indian partners and friends,” the Russian minister said.
(Manas Dasgupta)