New Delhi: India is open to mediating on the Ukraine-Russia conflict but does not believe it should initiate anything in this direction on its own, said External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar while describing the relationship with Moscow as “stable and always very friendly” in an interview to a German economic daily ‘Handelsblatt’.
Different viewpoint, a special report byy Sandeep Dikshit in The Tribune, Chandigarh, says
Just as India does not expect Europe to have a view of China that is identical to New Delhi’s, Europe should understand that India cannot have an identical view on Russia to the European one. — S Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister
“Theoretically, yes. We have already helped with very specific issues, for example when Turkiye negotiated the corridor through the Black Sea. And we were very supportive of the inspections of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant by the IAEA.
“Everyone conducts a relationship based on their past experiences,” said Jaishankar when asked if India could mediate an end to the conflict due to its excellent ties with Russia.
Jaishankar also talked of India’s ties with Russia. “Russia has never hurt our interests. Relations of powers like Europe, the US, China or Japan with Russia have seen ups and downs. Our relationship with Russia today is based on experience. For others, things were different, and conflicts may have shaped the relationship. We, on the other hand, had a politically and militarily much more difficult relationship with China,” he said.
He asserted that just as India did not expect Europe to have a view of China that was identical to New Delhi’s, Europe should understand that India couldn’t have a view of Russia that was identical to the European one.
The minister also defended India sourcing more oil from Russia even though the US and Europe have repeatedly asked it not to.
“What should we have done? In many cases, our West Asian suppliers gave priority to Europe because it paid higher prices. Either we would have had no energy because everything would have gone to them or we would have ended up paying a lot more because you were paying more. In a certain way, we stabilised the energy market,” he said.
Asked about India buying more weapons from Germany, Jaishankar said, “Germany has long been cautious when it comes to security and defence. In contrast, we have had robust cooperation with France for a long time and to a more limited extent with Spain and Italy. But I have seen a progresst in Germany’s attitude in recent years; my interlocutors now understand that you can’t completely exclude one part of a relationship. It is developing, and that is good for both sides.”
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