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On eve of PM Narendra Modi's Russia visit, India gives final touches to likely pacts |
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NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on a two-day visit to Russia today for the 16th annual summit with President Vladimir Putin that will be focused at expanding the strategic ties with a particular focus on nuclear energy, hydrocarbons, defence, trade and counter-terrorism.
After the talks on Thursday, the two old partners are likely to ink a number of pacts in a range of sectors including nuclear energy and defence. "We expect to sign a number of agreements covering a very broad range of fields. Final touches are being given on some of them," Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar told reporters.
The annual summit between the two countries at the highest level have been taking place alternately in Moscow and New Delhi since 2000.
The Foreign Secretary said expanding economic ties would be a "very big priority" as the two countries were aiming at enhancing annual bilateral trade to $ 30 billion over the next 10 years from current $ 10 billion.
Modi and Putin are likely to deliberate on a number of global issues having political dimensions including sthe ituation in Syria and ways to tackle terrorism including an action plan to combat international terrorism.
The top diplomat said India and Russia are on the same page in a broad sense with regard to Syria, as the two countries want resolution of the crisis through peaceful means. Jaishankar said India does not want forces of religious extremism and fundamentalism to gain ground.
The Foreign Secretary said India was looking at deeper engagement in Russia's oil and coal sector besides stepping up cooperation in some other areas like diamond trade and agro-business.
Energy-starved India, the third largest oil importer after the US and China, has been pushing for greater involvement in major gas and oil exploration projects in Russia. Russia is one of the top oil producers globally and has huge reserves of natural gas.
India is also likely to push for a Free Trade Agreement with the Eurasian Economic Zone and is sharing details of study it conducted in this regard.
Without giving specific details, Jaishankar said both Modi and Putin will deliberate on enhancing cooperation in defence and nuclear energy speheres.
"Russia has been a very major military and strategic partner of India. There will be a lot of discussions on that," he said.
Last week, Defence Ministry's top acquisition council had cleared the purchase of Russian S-400 Triumf air defence missile systems at an estimated cost of Rs 40,000 crore.
Asked whether Russia will strongly back India's bid for a seat at the UN Security Council (UNSC), the Foreign Secretary said "Two countries have great confidence and trust in each other. We do not at all doubt Russia's commitment to see India as a permanent member of the UNSC."
On whether India will request Russia to share details on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, he said the issue had figured during External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's recent visit to Moscow. "Let's wait and see what happens.I do not prejudge the Russian response till we get it," he said.
It will be Modi's second summit with Putin who was here last year for the 15th India-Russia Summit. The PM was in Russia last July for the BRICS Summit.
On Wednesday Putin will host a private dinner for the Prime Minister and the two leaders will interact with a group of Indian and Russian CEOs in Kremlin on Thursday.
The Prime Minister's engagement in Moscow will also include addressing a gathering of Friends of India and around 3,000 people are expected to attend the event on Thursday evening. He will also visit Russia's EMERCOM facility which deals with disaster management.
The "spade work" for the summit talks have been done by the Inter-Governmental Commission and the Military Technology Commssion of the two countries which met separately, recently.
When asked about Russia's decision to supply attack helicopters to Pakistan and whether Moscow was getting close to that country sending a message that it was not happy over India's growing closeness with the US, Jaishankar rubbished such interpretation. "Even a sense of comparision does not make sense to me," he quipped.
When referred to certain comments by Russian Ambassador here, the Foreign Secretary said as an envoy of Moscow, he will have to push that country's interests. "If the Russian Ambassador does not promote Russian aircraft, whose aircraft he will promote? He is doing his job."
After the summit talks last year, it was announced that Russia will build at least dozen nuclear reactors besides manufacturing advanced dual-use helicopters. The two countries had signed 20 agreements in oil, gas, defence, investment and other key sectors.
He said both sides will also explore possibility of enhancing people-to-people contacts and boosting tourism.
Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com
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