India won't join G7's price cap on Russian oil, says Sergey Lavrov

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has said that India would not join the western nations in imposing restrictions on oil and gas purchased from the country.

“India does not want to join the sanctions (imposed on Russia),” Lavrov said at an event at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. “They have made it clear that they will follow their own interests.”

His comment came amid increasing pressure from the United States and other Western nations on India to join the G7's move to cap the prices of energy purchased from Russia amid its military aggression against Ukraine.

Read | G7 to implement Russian oil price cap 'urgently'

The Finance Ministers of the G7 nations – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United States and United Kingdom – already agreed that they would ban maritime transportation of crude oil and other petroleum products purchased above the price cap from Russia. The move is aimed at limiting Russia’s ability to fund its military operations in Ukraine. They, however, did not immediately set the price cap and rather left it to be decided by a broader coalition of nations.

The US and other G7 nations want India to join the coalition to implement the price cap on crude oil. The issue was discussed when the US Deputy Secretary of Treasury, Wally Adeyemo, visited New Delhi and recently and discussed the issue during his meetings with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and other senior officials. He later said that India had expressed interest in knowing more about the move to capping the prices of energy exported by Russia. He also said that the move was consistent with India's objective of lowering energy prices for consumers. The Centre, however, so far did not make public its stand on the move by the G7 nations.

Read | US 'determined' to enforce price cap on Russian oil

“Indian leaders, including my colleague, Dr S Jaishankar, the External Affairs Minister, have publicly rejected any attempts to involve them in restrictions on the Russian energy purchases,” Lavrov said in Moscow on Thursday.

“Now the West is saying that it must force the entire world to stop cooperating with Russia, to impose sanctions. They rush about with this and proudly declare in public that they demanded that such-and-such countries should impose sanctions against Russia, otherwise they will face consequences,” Lavrov said in Moscow. “From the perspective of not even diplomacy, but common sense, how can they make such arrogant public statements in relation to such countries as India, China, Turkey, Egypt, Indonesia?,” he asked.