Russia on Wednesday reiterated its stance to extend support to India's aspirations to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Russian Defence Minister Sergey Lavrov also hailed New Delhi's skillful management of key issues at the G20 Summit as a “true triumph” of its foreign policy. "We support India's candidacy for joining the UN Security Council as a permanent member," Lavrov said after holding talks with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar in Moscow.
UN Security Council
The Security Council has 5 permanent and 10 non-permanent members. India has long been seeking a permanent membership at the UNSC, strongly calling for reform of the United Nations in line with the changing realities of the world. The five permanent members are the UK, China, Russia, the US and France.
Russia hails India for successful conduct of G20
Lavrov said the G20 Summit that took place in New Delhi earlier this year was a "true triumph of India’s foreign policy; it was a triumph of multilateral diplomacy, which has become possible, to a decisive degree, because the G20 Chair did not allow making the outcome document unilateral. The outcome document reflects the balance of interests". "This is a model of how to work within the G20 and, by the way, in the UN and the Security Council,” he added.
India was able to unite countries with starkly different perspectives on Ukraine in the G20. India, the summit's host nation, won a major diplomatic victory with the G20 joint declaration, which refrained from criticizing Russia directly for its conflict with Ukraine. The declaration garnered unanimous support from all G20 member nations, without a single dissenting note, with the key players, including the US, the UK, Russia and China, praising the outcome.
Jaishankar hails India-Russia trade
Meanwhile, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, during his address, appreciated the India-Russia trade, which is at an all-time high. He said that the negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement between India and the Eurasian Economic Union will resume in January next year. The Eurasian Economic Union is an economic union of five post-Soviet states located in Eurasia. The five member nations are; Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. He further said that the relationship between New Delhi and Moscow remains very steady, and strong and is based on strategic convergence on geopolitical interests.
India-Russia relations
Russia has been a longstanding time-tested partner of India. Since the signing of the “Declaration on the India-Russia Strategic Partnership” in October 2000, India-Russia ties have acquired a qualitatively new character with enhanced levels of cooperation in almost all areas of the bilateral relationship. Traditionally, the Indo-Russian strategic partnership has been built on five major components: politics, defence, civil nuclear energy, anti-terrorism cooperation, as well as the advancement of and exploration of outer space travel. The annual Summit meeting between the Prime Minister of India and the President of the Russian Federation is the highest institutionalized dialogue mechanism under the Strategic Partnership between India and the Russian Federation.
(With inputs from agencies)
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