Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov calls on PM Modi

The year 2020 should the year of implementation of the bilateral decisions taken by India and Russia last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday. The prime minister made these remarks when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on him, a statement from the Prime Minister's Office said.

During their interaction, Lavrov briefed the prime minister on his country's position on key international and regional issues. Lavrov is in Delhi to participate in the 'Raisina Dialogue'. "The Prime Minister noted that several important decisions and outcomes were reached between the two countries in 2019. He suggested that the year 2020, which is also the 20th anniversary year of the establishment of the strategic partnership between India and the Russian Federation, should be the year of implementation of those decisions'," the statement said.

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Lavrov conveyed that President Putin looked forward to the visit of Prime Minister Modi to Russia in May 2020 to participate in the 75th-anniversary celebration of the Victory Day, and in July 2020 for the BRICS and SCO Summits. The Prime Minister welcomed the fact that he would get multiple occasions this year to meet Putin and said that he also looked forward to hosting the Russian President for the annual bilateral summit later this year in India. During the interaction, Modi referred to the wide-ranging conversation he had with Putin over the telephone on January 13 and noted the progress in the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between the two countries in the previous year.

Russia Backs India For Permanent UNSC seat

Making a huge statement on Wednesday while speaking at the fifth edition of the Raisina Dialogue, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that India should be a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. He said that there should be a reform in the UNSC, stating that the main problem with the council is the under-representation of the developing countries. He added that Russia is convinced that  India is a new center of economic might, financial power, and political influence. Slamming the US, he said that the formation of G20 showed that it is not only the G7 who can take important geopolitical and diplomatic decisions in the current world order. 

"We are convinced that the overriding trend of global development is the objective process of the formation of new centres of economic might, financial power and political influence, India is obviously one them," he said.

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(With PTI inputs)