“We will manage without intermediaries”
Kommersant, 04.03.2019
By Sergei Strokan
Ambassador of India in the Russian Federation told "Kommersant" about the plans for bilateral cooperation and the future of the Indo-Pakistani settlement
“Kommersant” got to know the details of the visit of the Foreign Secretary of India Vijay Gokhale to Moscow, which became this year’s first visit of an Indian diplomat of such high rank to the Russian capital. As reported by “Kommersant” Ambassador of India in Russia Bala Venkatesh Varma, the Far East is becoming the strategic direction of bilateral cooperation: this will be confirmed with the trip of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, scheduled for September 4–6, to the Fifth Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, where his meeting with President Vladimir Putin will be held. Besides, Moscow and Delhi have reached an understanding of Russia's central role in the Afghan settlement and agreed that the India and Pakistan conflict should be resolved on a bilateral basis, without the mediation of third countries.
The concluding program, on Tuesday, of the visit of Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale to Moscow, included meetings with leading Russian diplomats in charge of international security issues and the Russian foreign policy in the Asian direction. As reported by “Kommersant”, the Ambassador of India in Russia Bala Venkatesh Varma conducted talks with two deputy foreign ministers of Russia, Sergey Ryabkov and Igor Morgulov , as well as the special envoy of the Russian president for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov in Moscow. Besides, the senior Indian diplomat met with Deputy Prime Minister and Permanent Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev.
The agreements reached at the end of the visit are intended to make 2019, the year of Parliamentary elections in India which would be starting next week and ending by May-end, an extremely dynamic year. Shortly after the election - presumably in June-July - Two high-ranking Russian delegations will visit India. One of them will be headed by Yury Trutnev, the other - by the Minister of Economic Development Maxim Oreshkin, who is the Russian co-chairman of the bilateral strategic economic dialogue. And finally, in the coming weeks, the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, is expected to visit Delhi: during the visit, the issue of Russian assistance in implementing the space program will be discussed, including the development of a new direction of space tourism.
As explained Ambassador Varma, on the whole, these visits should be the decisive stages of the preparation of the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip scheduled for September 4–6 to the Fifth Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, where Mr. Modi is invited as the main foreign guest. Here, in Vladivostok, this year it was decided to hold an annual Russian-Indian summit also.
Indian diplomatic sources point out that the choice of the “Pacific Gate” of Russia as the venue for the Russian-Indian summit of this year not only indicates the transfer of the “center of gravity” in bilateral investment cooperation to the eastern regions of Russia, but also has an important political significance:
“For India, it is an opportunity to demonstrate that in the Indo-Pacific region, it is entering a new game.”
Answering the “Kommersant” question on the agreements on Afghanistan reached during the visit of Vijay Gokhale, the head of the Indian diplomatic mission in Moscow pointed to the rapidly changing situation in which “Russia is playing a central role”. During the consultations held in Moscow, an understanding was reached that future agreement on Afghanistan is impossible without taking India and its interests into account in a strategically important region. Besides, according to Bala Venkatesh Varma, “Russia confirmed its support for India in the fight against terrorism."
Answering a “Kommersant” question on the possible mediation of Moscow in resolving the conflict between India and Pakistan, that was raised by the Foreign Minister of Pakistan Shah Mahmoud Qureshi in early March and had provoked a lively discussion in diplomatic circles and the Russian media, Ambassador Varma urged to consider the discussion on this subject as closed.
“The issue of mediation does not exist and cannot exist. This is a fiction. We will manage without intermediaries. Russia understands and fully supports the position of Delhi that the disputes between Indiaand Pakistan should be resolved exclusively on a bilateral basis, on the basis of the Shimla agreements, ”said the head of the Indian diplomatic mission in Moscow. It may be recalled that the Shimla agreements were signed between India and Pakistan on July 2, 1972 in Shimla, the capital of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.
According to Kommersant, during the visit of Vijay Gokhale to Moscow, prospects of military-technical cooperation (MTC) between the two countries were also discussed, for which a new test is an active rejection from the US administration. The sides noted that the direction of the MTC "remains one of the pillars" of bilateral relations, despite the increasing pressure from Washington. "Military-technical cooperation between India and Russia is firmly on its feet, "- assured Ambassador Varma to " Kommersant ".
