Making energy uncertain in a fragile economy helps no one: S Jaishankar

New Delhi: Making the availability of energy uncertain in a fragile economic situation around the world helps no one, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said at a meeting with his counterparts from the G20 nations in New York, even as US President Donald Trump kept criticising India for buying oil from Russia.

“Peace can certainly enable development, but by threatening development, we cannot facilitate peace. Making energy and other essentials more uncertain in an economically fragile situation helps no one,” Jaishankar said at the meeting of the G20 Foreign Ministers. “Therefore, the way out is to move the needle towards dialogue and diplomacy, not in the opposite direction towards further complications.”

The meeting was held on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

The relations between New Delhi and Washington, D.C., came under stress over the past few weeks since Trump imposed a 50% tariff on India’s exports to the US.

Trump’s 50% tariff on India’s exports to the US included a 25% additional tax that he imposed to dissuade the South Asian nation from continuing to buy oil from Russia. He and his aides accused India of funding Russia’s war against Ukraine despite the sanctions imposed on the former Soviet Union nation by the US and the European Union.

The US president told the UNGA as recently as on Tuesday that India and China were the “primary funders” of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“In any conflict situation, there will be a few who have the ability to engage both sides. Such countries can be utilised by the international community, both to achieve peace and to maintain it thereafter,” Jaishankar said. “So even as we attempt to address complex threats to peace, the value of encouraging a buy-in from those supportive of such goals should be appreciated.”

His comment signalled India’s willingness to play a more effective role in helping the world community to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

“A persistent threat to development is that perennial disruptor of peace – terrorism. It is imperative that the world display neither tolerance nor accommodation to terrorist activities. Given the extensive networking amongst terrorists, those who act against them on any front actually render a larger service to the international community as a whole, said the external affairs minister.