Focus on trade as EAM meets Putin and Lavrov

India and Russia on Thursday explored ways to expand trade in a balanced manner, ensure long-term supplies of key commodities such as fertilisers and sustain energy cooperation, with external affairs minister $ Jaishankar saying bilateral ties were among the steadiest of the world’s major relationships due to geopolitical convergence.

- Rezaul H Laskar

Jaishankar, who held talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow a day after co-chairing a meeting of a bilateral trade and economic body, also raised New Delhi's concerns, including a massive trade deficit, non-tariff barriers and regulatory impediments, and the issue of Indians serving in the Russian Army.

He also met Russian President Vladimir Putin, who will come to India later this year for a summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Jaishankar travelled to Russia after meeting Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi in New Delhi to take forward the normalisation of India-China relations against the backdrop of a growing estrangement between New Delhi and Washington over trade-related matters and the US administration's punitive tariffs on Indian goods.

“The global context for our meeting today is provided by the evolving geopolitical situation, the shifting economic and trade landscape, and our shared goal is to maximise our complementarity," Jaishankar said at the start of his meeting with Lavrov, which focused on bilateral ties.

and cooperation in trade, investment, defence, technology and people-to-people exchanges.