Jaishankar, Rubio discuss Russia-Ukraine conflict ahead of Putin’s visit to India

New Delhi: Even as New Delhi is preparing to host President Vladimir Putin early next month, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and the United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed Russia’s ‘special military operations’ in Ukraine during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of a G7 outreach meeting in Canada on Wednesday.

Jaishankar and Rubio discussed the Russia-Ukraine conflict even as President Donald Trump kept on repeating his claim about India slashing oil imports from the former Soviet Union nation. Trump even said recently that the US would lower the tariff it had imposed on India, as the South Asian nation had cut down on energy imports from Russia.

Rubio conveyed to Jaishankar his condolences on the loss of lives in the blast in New Delhi.

Jaishankar later posted on X that he and Rubio had discussed the India-US bilateral ties, focussing on trade and supply chains.

Trump recently said that the US had reached “pretty close” to clinching a “fair trade deal” with India.

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, however, said in New Delhi that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government would not compromise with the interests of the farmers and the dairy workers of India while working out a trade deal with the US.

New Delhi’s refusal to yield to the Trump Administration’s demand for duty concessions for US companies in the agricultural and dairy sectors of India has been a sticking point in the negotiations between the two sides for the trade deal.

“Exchanged views on the Ukraine conflict, the Middle East/West Asia situation and Indo-Pacific,” Jaishankar posted on X after the meeting with Rubio in Niagara in Canada.

Trump had announced on August 6 an additional 25% tariff – on top of the 25% levied earlier – on India’s exports to the US, in a move to dissuade the South Asian nation from buying oil from Russia. He and his aides often accused India of helping Russia continue the war in Ukraine by purchasing oil from the former Soviet Union nation, defying sanctions imposed by the US and European Union.

Putin is likely to visit New Delhi early next month for a summit with Modi.

New Delhi supported the US president’s peace plan for Gaza.

The sign of a thaw in the relations between Washington, D.C., and Beijing after Trump’s recent meeting with President Xi Jinping in South Korea, however, cast a shadow of uncertainty over the Quad – a coalition forged by India, Japan, Australia and the US to counter China’s hegemonic aspirations in the Indo-Pacific region. Modi was to host the Quad summit in New Delhi this year, but it has now been postponed. Trump, however, recently said that he looked forward to visiting New Delhi early next year.