Sushma to host Chinese, Russian foreign ministers

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is likely to host her counterparts from Moscow and Beijing next month for a Russia-India-China trilateral meeting, even as New Delhi is contemplating to have a quadrilateral meeting with US, Japan and Australia this month.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi are likely to come to New Delhi in December to attend the Russia-India-China trilateral meeting, which will be hosted by Swaraj in December, sources in New Delhi said.

Though New Delhi is cautious about joining the proposed four-nation initiative involving India, Japan, the US and Australia, it is likely to attend an informal preliminary meeting of the "quad" in Manila on the sideline of the ASEAN and East Asia Summit this month.

Asked about the proposed quad in the Indian Ocean Region, Russian Ambassador Nikolay Kudashev said, "Russia is for a larger regional non-block architecture where there is space for all with trust and confidence."

"We are for an open architecture. Different combinations (of nations) are possible, but voices of each of the members should be heard and there should be space for everybody," he said.

The Russian Ambassador was talking to the media on the successful completion of Indra-2017, the first tri-service service military exercise involving the Army, Navy and Air Force of the two nations.

US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, and Japanese Fopreign Minister, Taro Kono, of late proposed to launch the four-nation initiative, involving India-US-Australia-Japan, to promote cooperation in Indo-Pacific region.