SCO Meet: Jaishankar Holds Talks With Russian, Chinese Counterparts

Benaulim (Goa), May 4 (PTI) External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday held wide-ranging talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on overall bilateral cooperation, the Ukraine conflict and regional as well as global issues of mutual interest. The talks took place at a beach resort in Benaulim on the sidelines of a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). The Russian foreign minister landed in Goa this morning to attend the SCO conclave, a day after Russia accused Ukraine of attacking the Kremlin with drones in an unsuccessful attempt to kill President Vladimir Putin.

Jaishankar and Lavrov reviewed overall trajectory of bilateral engagement in the backdrop of the global geopolitical upheaval, people familiar with the matter said. There is no clarity yet on whether trade-related issues figured in the talks. India has been pressing Russia for urgently addressing the trade imbalance that has been in favour of Moscow.

India's trade deficit with Russia jumped significantly in the last few months after it procured significant volumes of discounted crude oil from that country in the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis.

The SCO is an influential economic and security bloc and has emerged as one of the largest transregional international organisations. India has not yet condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and it has been pushing for resolution of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy.

Jaishankar Meets Chinese Foreign Min Qin Gang

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday held bilateral talks with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang with the border row along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh believed to be in focus. The talks took place in a beach resort in Benaulim on the sidelines of a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

The three-year border row in eastern Ladakh will be a focus area of the talks, people familiar with the matter said ahead of the meeting. The Jaishankar-Gang meeting was their second one in the last two months. The Chinese foreign minister visited India in March to attend a meeting of the G20 foreign ministers.

On the sidelines of the meeting, Jaishankar held talks with Qin during which he conveyed to his Chinese counterpart that the state of India-China relations is "abnormal" because of the lingering border row in eastern Ladakh.

The ties between India and China nosedived significantly following the fierce clash in the Galwan Valley in June 2020 that marked the most serious military conflict between the two sides in decades.

The Indian and the Chinese troops are locked in a standoff in a few friction points along the LAC in eastern Ladakh for the last three years though they disengaged in several places following a series of military and diplomatic talks. India has been maintaining that the relationship between the two countries should be based on "three mutuals" -- mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interests.

The eastern Ladakh border standoff erupted on May 5, 2020, following a violent clash in the Pangong lake area. As a result of a series of military and diplomatic talks, the two sides completed the disengagement process in 2021 on the north and south banks of the Pangong lake and in the Gogra area.

The SCO was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the presidents of Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan became its permanent members in 2017.

India was made an observer at the SCO in 2005 and has generally participated in the ministerial-level meetings of the grouping, which focus mainly on security and economic cooperation in the Eurasian region.

India has shown a keen interest in deepening its security-related cooperation with the SCO and its Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS), which specifically deals with issues relating to security and defence.