Russian-Indian FM's Joint Press Conference

Moscow, November 8, 2022

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: We held meaningful and useful talks in a traditionally friendly and frank manner with Indian External Affairs Minister Dr S.Jaishankar. Our countries are united by historical ties characterized by mutual respect, self-sufficiency, resistance to fluctuations in the geopolitical situation.

We were unanimous that the strengthening of the Russian-Indian special and privileged strategic partnership is in the fundamental interests of our peoples and contributes to the maintenance of international and regional security and stability. We noted with satisfaction the rhythmic, regular, intensive nature of our political dialogue, at the highest level and between Foreign Ministries.

We welcomed the positive dynamics of bilateral trade. By September 2022, compared to the same period last year, the trade turnover added 133%, almost reaching the mark of 17 billion US dollars. We are sure that the goal set by the leaders of Russia and India to increase the annual trade turnover to 30 billion USD will be achieved soon.

We agreed that the Intergovernmental Russian-Indian Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technical and Cultural Cooperation plays a key role in trade, economic, investments interaction, cooperation in the areas of logistics, transport, and high technologies. Today, Dr S.Jaishankar held a meeting with his colleague – Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov (they are co-chairs in this Commission). According to the External Affairs Minister of India, the dialogue was useful and meaningful.

We discussed in detail the state of and prospects for ongoing negotiations on the launch of the North-South international transport corridor and a number of other projects related to logistics in our common region.

We pointed out good prospects for cooperation in the energy sector, including an increase in exports of hydrocarbons from Russia to the Indian market and mutual participation in projects for their production, including in the Far East and on the Arctic shelf of the Russian Federation. We noted effective cooperation in the field of the peaceful atom, the successful construction of the Kudankulam NPP. We discussed further steps in this direction, providing a new site for the construction of a Russian-designed NPP, which will make it possible to provide India with clean and safe energy in the future.

We examined in detail the state of and prospects for military-technical cooperation and the joint production of modern types of weapons. We attach great importance to space exploration in such areas as satellite navigation, space science, and manned programs.

We stressed the importance of active negotiations on concluding an agreement on a free trade area between the Eurasian Economic Union and India.

We exchanged high assessments of the interaction between our countries on the world stage, including within the framework of the UN, BRICS, SCO, the G20, as well as at other multilateral platforms.

We paid great attention to the situation in Afghanistan, the Middle East and North Africa.

For our part, we reaffirmed our high assessment of the Indian friends' position on the situation in Ukraine and around it. I informed Dr S.Jaishankar about the course of a special military operation aimed at achieving the tasks that were set by the President of Russia Vladimir Putin in his speech on February 24, 2022.

We discussed the situation that has developed around the attempts of the Western colleagues, under the pretext of the Ukrainian events, to strengthen their dominant role in world affairs and prevent the democratization of international relations.

I believe that the talks were useful and confirmed the mutual disposition to strengthen cooperation in all areas. We will continue to maintain contacts, including during the upcoming multilateral events under in the auspices of ASEAN and the G20.