NEW DELHI: Defending India's ties with Russia,
foreign minister
S Jaishankar said everyone conducts relationships based on their past experiences and
Russia
has never
hurt India
's interests. The minister also said India's
purchase of Russian oil
had helped stabilise the energy market.
"If I look at the history of India post-Independence, Russia has never hurt our interests. The relations of powers like Europe, the US, China or Japan with Russia, they have all seen ups and downs. We have had a stable and always very friendly relationship with Russia," said the minister in an interview to a German daily.
"And our relationship with Russia today is based on this 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, for example," he added.
The minister said if no one had purchased crude from Russia and got supplies from other countries, prices in the energy market would have shot up even further. "Global inflation would have been much higher - and that would have been a huge political issue in lower-income countries," he said.
On being asked if India could mediate in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the minister said India is open to the idea only when it is approached. When asked if India would like support from Europe in the border conflict with China, he said his point was "just as I do not expect Europe to have a view of China that is identical to mine, Europe should understand that I cannot have a view of Russia that is identical to the European one".
"Let us accept that there are natural differences in relationships," he said.
When asked if India is undermining the sanctions against Russia, Jaishankar said if Europe had wanted to maximise the damage at the time, it would have had to stop all economic relations with Russia completely.
English (US) ·