‘Seeing consequences of Ukraine war’: S Jaishankar meets Lavrov in Moscow
External affairs minister S Jaishankar and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov held talks in Moscow on Tuesday covering a range of bilateral, regional and global issues of mutual interests amid the ongoing Ukraine war.
The external affairs minister arrived in Moscow on Monday evening. Jaishankar and Lavrov have already met four times after the Ukraine conflict began in February.
“Our meeting today is devoted to assessing the state of our bilateral cooperation, exchange in perspectives on the international situation and what that means to our respective interests. We would be discussing how our shared goals are best achieved,” news agency ANI quoted Jaishankar as saying at a press conference.
Since the start of the Ukraine conflict in February, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a number of times.
“There have been strong and continuing contacts between our governments at various levels. PM Modi and President Putin met recently in Samarkand this September and our defence ministers spoke to each other,” Jaishankar said.
In a phone conversation with Zelenskyy on October 4, Modi had said there can be “no military solution” and that India is ready to contribute to any peace efforts.
At a bilateral meeting with Putin in the Uzbek city of Samarkand on September 16, Modi told him that “today’s era is not of war”.
India is yet to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine and it has been maintaining that the crisis must be resolved through diplomacy and dialogue.
“We are now seeing the consequences of the Ukraine conflict. There are also the more perennial issues of terrorism and climate change, both of which have a disruptive impact on progress and prosperity,” the EAM added in Moscow.
Jaishankar also said the talks would address the overall global situation as well as specific regional concerns. “India and Russia engage each other in an increasingly multi-polar and rebalanced world. We have had an exceptionally steady relationship,” the minister said.
Lavrov said, “We coordinate our actions in international organisations such as the UNSC where India is now a non-permanent member… all this is enriching our agenda and I am confident that today, we are going to have a good conversation about all this.”
With the changes the international community is going through, Lavrov said, it’s important to compare “our notes, our assessments integrally on how we are going to work on the goals set by the Russian President and PM of India on the economy, trade, investments, tech sphere”.