Moscow dismisses US bid to stall stronger Indo-Russian ties

Moscow on Monday dismissed a US bid to dissuade India from augmenting its ties with Russia, even as it reassured New Delhi that its recent defence agreement with Islamabad would not result in any immediate sale of weapons to Pakistan.

Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Moscow’s envoy to New Delhi, Alexander M Kadakin, said his country highly valued India’s policy of not accommodating “alien selfish interests, which contradicted not only fundamental postulates of the international law, but also elementary common sense, honesty and norms of civilised international behaviour”.

Kadakin’s remark was apparently a response to a US attempt to dissuade India from boosting its defence, trade and economic ties with Russia during Putin’s visit to New Delhi this week.

He said the Modi-Putin meeting on Thursday would be yet another milestone in bilateral ties. “It is being held against the background of a burdened international milieu, when we face increasing pressure from the US and its allies, trying to force our country to... act against our own national interests,” Kadakin told journalists at the Russian Embassy in New Delhi. 

Ahead of Putin’s visit for the annual bilateral summit, Washington on Friday sent out a note of caution with a US State Department spokesperson reminding Delhi that it was not the right time to do business with Russia.