Indian External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar has said that New Delhi's foreign policy doesn't believe in supporting sanctions applied by G7 or the western nations.
"By and large, it has not been India's foreign policy method really to do the sanctions. Sanctions are something which are very much rooted in western way or G7 way of working, because they control the means to apply the sanctions," Jaishankar remarked during an event on India-Japan Strategic Partnership organised by Japanese publication Nikkei Asian Review in Tokyo on Friday.
He was responding to a question from a Japanese national if India would support the implementation of sanctions against China, Russia and North Korea if there were a "contingency" over Taiwan.
The Indian foreign minister recalled that the only time that New Delhi "strong advocated" sanctions was when South Africa was under the Apartheid regime.
"When, actually at that time, most of the developed countries didn't want to do sanctions," Jaishankar said.
The top Indian diplomat went on to question the effectiveness of the 13 rounds of G7 sanctions against Russia since the special military operation began in February 2022.
"If you look at even the current sanctions, it is a big debate in our business. Do sanctions really work or they don't work? What is the cost and what is the cost to people who apply the sanctions? If I would make one point, it has nothing to with Taiwan or China or Russia. Not every country in the world thinks this is the immediate right, effective way of conveying what you want to convey," Jaishankar stated.
In spite of West's unilateral sanctions, Russia's GDP growth averaged 3.6 percent in 2023, according to Russian Federal Statistics Service Rosstat. The Russian GDP growth for the previous year was more than that of the European Union or the United States (US).
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast in January that Russian GDP growth would be arund 2.6 percent, which is more than double projected by the Washington-based lender last year.
Jaishankar Backs Dialogue to Resolve Ukraine Conflict
The Indian foreign minister opined that the Ukraine conflict would have to settled through dialogue rather than on the battlefield.
“We are today for resolving this conflict. We want to see an end to this conflict,” Jaishankar said, responding to a question on West’s criticism of New Delhi for taking a neutral stance.
“But we believe that every conflict ends by people coming to the table. That’s how conflicts end. I mean you can also decide a conflict on the battlefield but we don’t think this conflict will be decided on the battlefield,” the top Indian diplomat predicted.
While Russia has offered Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) the prospect of a dialogue to resolve the conflict, Kiev has set preconditions as part of its so-called "peace formula" in order to begin negotiations. The West-backed peace plan has been rejected by Moscow as "unrealistic".
Further, the Indian foreign minister criticised the Western countries for trying to pressure India into altering its stance on the Ukraine issue.
“What happens sometimes in world politics is that countries pick one issue, one situation, one principle and they highlight it because it suits them…. But if one looks at the principle itself… We in India know better than any other country because immediately after our independence, we experienced aggression, we experienced an effort to change our boundaries, and even today parts of India are occupied by another country," Jaishankar highlighted.
He noted that India had found no or little support among other countries when it was experiencing aggression at its borders.
"Today, we are being told that there are principles involved. I wish I had seen those principles at play over the last 80 years. I have seen those principles being cherry-picked when it suits people, and not when it doesn’t suit them," Jaishankar asserted.