India on Thursday dismissed criticism from the United States and the United Kingdom for continuing to buy crude oil from Russia, pointing out that many other nations kept on importing hydrocarbon from President Vladimir Putin's country in much larger quantities than it did.
Though the US and several other western nations imposed sanctions on Russia in response to its military operations in Ukraine, India is exploring options to continue its trade with the former Soviet Union nation, bypassing restrictions on payment.
“I would like to take this opportunity to inform the House that we import very little oil from Russia. It is less than 1 per cent of our imports,” External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told the Rajya Sabha, adding: “Many other countries import 10, 15 to 20 times the amount of oil that we do import (from Russia)”.
Jaishankar was replying to supplementary queries from the Rajya Sabha members after replying to a question from India's position in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“So, I share the honourable member's observation on this matter,” the External Affairs Minister said when Naresh Gujral of the Shiromani Akali Dal accused the western nations of 'playing a double game'. “Entire Europe is importing petroleum from there (Russia) and they lecture us that we should not trade with them (Russia)”.
“Because of the emerging problems in dealing with Russia (due to sanctions imposed by the US and other western nations), (the) Government is examining various aspects including the payment aspect,” the External Affairs Minister said.
“There is a group within the Government composed of (representatives of) different ministries. It is led by (the) finance ministry to examine these matters," he added.
New Delhi and Moscow are exploring payment in national currencies, Rupee and Ruble, to continue bilateral trade, as the sanctions by the US and other western nations made it difficult to make transactions.
India still relies heavily on Russia for its military hardware, including ammunition, given the long-standing defence cooperation between the two nations.
"Our position is not that, this is not our problem. Our position is that we are for peace. When the Prime Minister spoke to Presidents (of Russia and Ukraine), the intent obviously at that time was the evacuation of students..but there was a larger conversation on what we could do which lead to the cessation of hostilities and return of dialogue and diplomacy. I think today that sentiment is widely shared by many countries. We have articulated it very strongly".
With Moscow offering crude oil to New Delhi at a discounted price, India has already planned to buy about 15 million barrels of crude oil from sanctions-hit Russia at a discounted price over the next few weeks, notwithstanding criticism in the US and the UK. The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) already made a move to buy as much as 3 million barrels of crude oil from Russia immediately.
New Delhi took note of the fact that Russia was exporting oil and gas to various countries across the world, particularly Europe. It noted that 75 per cent of Russia’s total natural gas exports was to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Europe (like Germany, Italy, France). The European countries like the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Romania were also large importers of Russian crude oil.
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