President Pranab Mukherjee met Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the full range of India-Russia ties, officials said.
“They had a wide-ranging review of bilateral cooperation, including on energy and defence cooperation,” Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar said, briefing the media here.
According to Mr. Jaishankar, the two Presidents discussed all the initiatives agreed to when President Putin visited Delhi in December, including ongoing talks on joint development of the Ka-226T helicopters as well as MoUs with ONGC for Sakhalin oilfields and Arctic explorations as well as GAIL for gas pipelines from Russia.
President Putin and President Mukherjee agreed that current trade levels of about $10 billion must be raised to $30 billion and investment levels to $15 billion, and talked about developing the North-South trade route at the earliest.
Mr. Putin told Mr. Mukherjee that his presence at that commemoration day parade was a “special demonstration of our special and privileged strategic relationship.”
The BRICS combine appears to be holding together. It was created precisely to prevent the full force of NATO or the US to be brought to be on any one of those countries alone.
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