What will be the key focus of the India-Russia summit to be held in India later this year? What are areas where two sides are expecting pacts and agreements at the summit?
COVID-19 pandemic urged us to adjust the schedule of our high and highest level contacts a bit. But they didn’t stop – our leaders, foreign ministers and senior officials were in touch with each other in bilateral and multilateral formats implementing decisions of Vladivostok summit held last year and jointly dealing with current challenges.
As you know, the BRICS and SCO summits were postponed until autumn this year, and we are hopeful to have our regular bilateral summit at the same time. It is too early to speak about what particular documents might be signed there, however, without any doubt we expect further considerable progress in hydrocarbon and atomic energy, trade and finance, military and technical, science and technology, humanitarian and other areas.
Definitely, we will continue our discussions on India’s involvement in developing the Far East regions of Russia, its Pacific coast and Arctic zone, including joint efforts to re-establish Vladivostok-Chennai sea-route, as well as negotiations on the free-trade agreement between India and the Eurasian Economic Union.
Our determination for success of the summit is very high. We are inspired by significant dates that we mark this year – the 20th anniversary of the establishment of our strategic partnership, 10th anniversary of its special and privileged status, as well as 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and the establishment of the UN.
Amid the pandemic it would be natural to see our leaders expressing their commitment to strengthening multipolarity based on the central role of the UN and international law as well as willingness to work together and with other partners in order to promote unified agenda in the framework of the leading global and regional structures such as G20, BRICS, SCO and others.
Do you think that the current pandemic has impacted India-Russian projects including Russian investments in India across sectors including defence?
As we already mentioned, the pandemic affected the schedule of our contacts slightly, although our special and privileged strategic partnership has become even stronger. We demonstrated readiness to support each other in the time of need by supplying critical medicines, to assist in repatriation of nationals of both countries, and showed willingness to expand our partnership in multilateral institutions.
That makes us feel that our companies and organizations had not interrupted their activities and continued dialogue and cooperation on the current and future projects in all areas. As far as defence partnership is concerned, both sides remained fully committed to timely implementation of the agreed contracts.
What are Russian plans to increase JVs with India as part of the Indian government’s focus on local manufacturing?
We are following very closely the announcements that the Indian government is making with regard to ensure consistency and inclusiveness of the economic development in this critical period, including initiatives aimed at further expansion of manufacturing base, self-reliance in critical goods, disinvestment of the state owned enterprises.
In fact, our partnership goes in line with each others’ development strategies, including in the framework of Make in India programme.
Large number of our JVs do envisage various options for co-development and co-production, exchange of technologies and localization. The same is true even for such sophisticated and sensitive areas as nuclear power and military technical cooperation. We can mention Kalashnikov and Ka-226 helicopters production plans for India in this regard as well as dedicated agreement on co-production of military hardware spare parts signed in Vladivostok. So, we are looking forward to continue our joint work to make our mutually beneficial cooperation to serve critical needs of our economies as well as prosperity and well-being of our peoples.
What are plans by India and Russia to widen their energy partnership?
Our energy cooperation, as you know, is multidimensional, and we are working very hard to achieve further progress there.
We are very satisfied with the implementation of the Kudankulam nuclear power project comprising of six units. Two of them are already operational, generating affordable energy for local consumers. Other units are under construction.
We expect that the second site for the Russian design nuclear power plants in India will be determined soon.
Early this year Russian Rosneft and Indian Oil signed an agreement for the supply of 2 million tons of crude oil to India, and both sides are working on further long term arrangements. At the same time, we are committed to work out concrete decisions for relevant investment opportunities when it comes to oil and gas sectors in India and in Russia, including expansion of petrochemical industries under the brand of Nayara Energy and participation in the Vostok Oil project.
Solid prospects we see in implementation of coking coal supplies agreement.
There is huge potential of cooperation in the field of energy in framework of dedicated multilateral mechanisms. Particularly, given the current Russian presidency in BRICS, we expect further progress in promoting the BRICS energy research cooperation platform, which would support the five countries’ national efforts to ensure energy security through the relevant joint research and development.
Beijing appears to be in no mood to compromise on the border row. How does Russia view the current standoff at the Line of Actual Control with China?
It is hard to stay emotionless when it comes to the rise of tensions between our good friends and partners. We are very hopeful for the situation at the LAC to become de-escalated. We are confident that the neighbors guided by Wuhan and Chennai informal summits commitments would demonstrate their dedication to the peace and tranquility at the border, as well as to constructive dialogue.
At the same time, we are also looking forward to further high and highest levels engagements in the framework of BRICS, SCO and RIC, where Russia is currently chairing, in order to expand mutual understanding and mutual trust for the sake of stability and sustainable development, particularly in Eurasia.
What are Indo-Russian plans to expand their partnership in Asia?
It is not a plan, rather the way we are following. It is more about our common vision in favour of an inclusive multilateral agenda, which we support for the region. In particular, we are promoting endeavours based on the UN Charter and international law and aimed at strengthening shared and undivided security, combining efforts to tackle challenges and threats, streamlining consolidation for the sake of sustainable development, respecting interests of all in resolving conflicts. For these purposes, we stand for an in-depth dialogue on a New architecture for cooperation in the Asia-Pacific and Collective security concept for the Persian Gulf.
We also highly appreciate the interest to the initiative of the Great Eurasian Partnership, which was proposed by President Vladimir Putin inviting a unified potential of the regional mechanisms such as the SCO, ASEAN, East Asia Summits, the EU and others in order to facilitate seamless physical, economic, humanitarian and security connectivity.