British Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss on Thursday said that the United Kingdom would not tell India whether it should continue importing oil from Russia.
“I think it’s very important that we respect other countries’ decisions about the issues that they face; India is a sovereign nation. I’m not going to tell India what to do,” she said after a meeting with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in New Delhi.
She, however, pointed out that Europe had not done enough to lessen dependence on energy imports from Russia after it had annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. “We are seeing the result of that now,” she added, referring to Russia’s current military operations in Ukraine. “I think it’s natural for countries to go out into the market and look for what are good deals for their people,” Jaishankar said, rejecting criticism from the US and the other western nations of New Delhi’s move to buy oil from Russia.
“I am pretty sure if we wait two or three months and actually look at who are the big buyers of Russian gas and oil, I suspect the list won’t be very different from what it used to be,” he added, pointing out that the European countries continued to buy oil from Russia.
With Moscow offering crude oil to New Delhi at a discounted price, India has already planned to buy about 15 million barrels of crude oil from sanction-hit Russia at a discounted price over the next few weeks, notwithstanding criticism in the US and the UK.
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(Published 31 March 2022, 23:28 IST)
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