India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has said that the decision to import crude from Russia since 2022 has been solely based on New Delhi's "energy security requirements".
"We have said this before as well, including in this press engagement we have, that all our oil purchases abroad, they are based on our energy security requirements. And this is a decision we take independently, based on our national interest," MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told a regular news briefing in New Delhi on Friday.
"Yes, on this particular matter, there have been conversations between us and the American side," the MEA spokesperson added.
Jaiswal was responding to a question about comment by Eric Garcetti, the US Ambassador to India, who said at an event in Washington DC last week that the Biden administration "allowed the purchase to take place to ensure the prices didn't go up globally".
"Due to this arrangement, global oil prices didn’t shoot up and India delivered on that", Garcetti said at the event organised by American think tank Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
US Pressure on India Over Russian Crude
Garcetti's statement have been widely viewed as marking a departure from America's previous position on growing Russia-India energy ties.
According to White House's then spokesperson Jen Psaki, President Joe Biden had told Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April 2022 that New Delhi's purchases of Russian crude wasn't in India's interest.
During a visit to New Delhi in April 2022, Biden's then deputy National Security Advisor (NSA) Dalip Singh had told Indian officials that it wasn't in “India’s interest to accelerate or increase imports of Russian energy”.
In December 2022, the G7 allies instituted a $60 per barrel price cap, asking countries using western insurers and shipping services to import Russian oil to purchase it below international prices.
Since last year, Russia has ranked as India's top supplier of crude, accounting for around 30-40 percent of its overall oil imports.