External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday that India shouldn’t be intimidated from pursuing “economic complementarities” with Russia.
“It is not a simple oil issue. There is an economic complementarity between India and Russia and we shouldn’t be intimidated from pursuing the advantages of that complementarity,” Jaishankar said during a keynote address at a book launch event at New Delhi-based think tank Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF).
Although Jaishankar didn't mention it explicitly, the reference is understood to be at Western efforts to affect Russia-India ties in view of the sanctions.
Reading out an excerpt from the book, ‘Strategic Conundrums: Reshaping India’s Foreign Policy’ by former diplomat Rajiv Sikri, the Minister noted that it was “strategic but unequal partnership that has made India more self-reliant”.
Further, Jaishankar stressed that there had been a “profound shift” in Moscow’s global outlook in the wake of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.
“What I would say is that Russia now is following its own Look East policy,” he said.
The diplomat stated that India needed to take advantage of Moscow’s changing global outlook.
“We, in India, need to understand, absorb and take advantage of it, rather than let our decisions being clouded by a larger narrative which is not our line… There is a Eurasian balance which we have to be sensitive to, which is a core strategic requirement for us,” the foreign minister said.
In terms of India’s relations with other permanent members of the UN Security Council, Jaishankar said that New Delhi’s decisions should be guided by its “national security” interests and whether these ties serve to boost “our comprehensive national power”.
Further, he remarked that India-backed connectivity initiatives, including the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC), India Middle-East Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC) and the Northern Sea Route (NSR), were all “testimony to the fact that geography matters”.