India's Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.
Credit: Reuters File Photo
New Delhi: India and Russia have made a “concrete movement forward” for joint production of advanced weapons, the foreign minister of the former Soviet Union nation, Sergey Lavrov, said after a meeting with his counterpart from New Delhi, S Jaishankar, in Moscow on Wednesday.
Jaishankar and Lavrov discussed the need to progress on a bilateral investment treaty between India and Russia. They agreed that the negotiations between India and the Eurasian Economic Union for a free trade agreement would be resumed in the second half of January.
India’s external affairs minister and his counterpart in the Russian Government also discussed connectivity – particularly the International North-South Transport Corridor, the Chennai-Vladivostok Maritime Corridor and the Polar Route.
Jaishankar is currently on a tour to Moscow even as New Delhi’s ties with Washington DC have of late come under a shadow after President Joe Biden’s administration alleged that an official of the Government of India had been involved in an alleged plot to kill a Khalistani Sikh extremist in the United States.
New Delhi earlier drew flak from the US and the rest of the West for not condemning Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine since February 2022.
“India-Russia relations remain very steady, remain very strong, they are based on our strategic convergence, on our geopolitical interests, and because they are mutually beneficial,” Jaishankar said after his meeting with Lavrov on Wednesday. He had earlier met Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov on Tuesday and together witnessed the signing of the amendments to the agreements on Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant as well as the pacts on cooperation in medical devices and pharmaceutical substances.
Jaishankar is likely to call on Russian President Vladimir Putin before leaving Moscow. He is expected to convey to Putin a message from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“We appreciate the fact that our trade is at an all-time high. We have crossed $50 billion turnover last year. We expect to exceed that this year. And what is important is that this trade is more balanced. It is sustainable, and it provides for fair market access,” he said after his meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister.
Lavrov said that he and Jaishankar discussed the prospects for military-technical cooperation, including the joint production of modern weapons. “There is also a concrete movement forward here. In this area, our interaction is strategic. Its deepening corresponds to the national interests of our states and maintaining security on the Eurasian continent,” he said.
He said that Russia respected the desire of the Indian colleagues to diversify ties in the field of military-technical cooperation. “We also understand and are ready to support their initiative to produce military products within the framework of the “Make in India” program. We are ready to cooperate on this issue.”