Multipolar Asia & world impossible without India & Russia: Foreign Secy Shringla in Moscow

On February 17, India's Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla met Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov in Moscow and held political consultations on a wide range of issues concerning bilateral ties, including the schedule of the upcoming political consultations, intention to strengthen the strategic partnership in every possible way, and tightening the coordination of international and regional issues in multilateral formats with the participation of both the countries. By expanding cooperation in traditional and high-tech spheres, both the sides underlined their aspiration to increase the trade and economic turnover.

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Foreign Secretary Shringla emphasized that a multipolar world and multipolar Asia are not possible without India and Russia.  India envisions a ‘multipolar Asia’ as it is a shared regional leadership where major and minor powers have equal standing in decision-making. 

Russia and India also recognised their similar approaches to global and regional issues and also stressed the intention to continue the coordination of efforts at international and regional platforms such as UN, G20, BRICS, SCO, RIC and EAEU. 

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Shringla said that the Russian Foreign Minister emphasised the prominence of the special privileged strategic partnership. They talked about other visits and a large number of exchanges are on the cards for the India-Russia relationship.

"We also spoke about the annual summit and he said President Putin was looking forward to his visit to India at the invitation of Prime Minister Modi and that the visit would take place sometime on a date to be decided. There are a number of other visits that we spoke about -- there is a visit of the Deputy Prime Minister for the Inter-Governmental Commission with our Minister for External Affairs. We are looking at the visits of our army and naval chiefs," the Foreign Secretary said.

He added, they discussed some regional and international issues of interest including cooperation in the UN and UNSC where India is a non-permanent member now. They also spoke about issues like Afghanistan which both countries have a direct interest in.

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The Foreign Secretary stated that they discussed cooperation in the area of vaccines, global responses to COVID-19 and how both the countries can work together in partnership to deal with this issue. Shringla extended an invitation to Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov from EAM Jaishankar to visit India and the Russian Minister said he is looking forward to doing so at the earliest.

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(With ANI Inputs)