The strategic partnership between India and Russia is based on five main pillars — politics, defense, civil nuclear energy, counter-terrorism cooperation, and space
Our Bureau
Moscow/New Delhi
Russia’s new foreign policy strategy adopted by President Vladimir Putin on Friday identified China and India as its main allies on the world stage. The new 42-page document singled out ties with China and India, stressing the importance of “the deepening of ties and coordination with friendly sovereign global centers of power and development located on the Eurasian continent.” India and Russia maintained a close strategic, military, economic, and diplomatic interaction during the Cold War. Both Russia and India refer to this alliance as being unique and privileged.
The strategic partnership between India and Russia is based on five main pillars — politics, defense, civil nuclear energy, counter-terrorism cooperation, and space. India and Russia celebrated the 75th anniversary of their diplomatic relations.
According to the document, Russia will continue to build a particularly privileged strategic partnership with India with a view to enhancing and expanding cooperation in all areas on a mutually beneficial basis and place special emphasis on increasing the volume of bilateral trade, strengthening investment and technological ties, and ensuring their resistance to destructive actions of unfriendly states and their alliances.
“In order to help adapt the world order to the realities of a multipolar world, Russia intends to make it one of priorities to enhance the capacity and international role of the interstate association of BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the RIC (Russia, India, China) and other interstate associations and international organizations, as well as mechanisms with strong Russian participation,” read the document.
Also on Friday, US NATO Ambassador Julianne Smith, while speaking on NATO and strengthening relationships with South Asia and the Indo-Pacific, virtually said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is ready to engage more with India if it is interested. The Ambassador though stressed that currently there are no plans by the alliance to expand this to a broader global military alliance.
“The NATO alliance is open to more engagement should India seek that. NATO currently has 40 different partners around the World and each individual partnership is different. Various countries come to the door seeking different levels of political engagement, sometimes countries are much more interested in working on inter-operability, and standardization questions. So, they vary. But the message that has already been sent back to India is that NATO alliance is certainly open to more engagement with India, should that country take interest in pursuing that”, said Julianne Smith in a virtual press briefing. “Membership is not something that we have really considered with anyone in the Indo-Pacific or Asia-Pacific. The alliance remains the Euro-Atlantic military alliance. Its door is open to the region. But there are no plans by the alliance to expand this to a broader global military alliance,” she added.
Further, speaking on the meeting of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs, which will take place on April 4-5, 2023 at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels, the ambassador said “at this stage, we would not want to invite them (India) to NATO ministerial until we knew more about their interest in engaging the alliance more broadly”.
“In terms of the future with India, I think NATO’s door is open in terms of engagement should India be interested. But we would not want to at this stage invite them to NATO ministerial until we knew more about their interest in engaging the alliance more broadly,” she added.
Appreciating India’s role in the Russia-Ukraine war, the envoy said she is grateful for the humanitarian assistance that India has been able to provide to the country and that she appreciates India’s call for an immediate end to the war in Ukraine.
Russia has been the largest supplier of weapons to India, accounting for nearly 50 per cent of the latter’s arms imports from 2016-2020. Both China and India have also ramped up oil imports from sanctions-hit Russia amid the war in Ukraine.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for his part underscored that the document directly calls the US the main instigator of anti-Russian politics in the world. He added that the logic behind Russia’s new foreign policy concept reflects the revolutionary changes in international affairs.
