Moscow: External Affairs Minister S M Krishna will visit Russia next week to finalise the non- military cooperation agenda for the December Summit between the two countries and co-chair an inter-governmental Joint Commission on trade and other matters.
"Krishna will visit Russia on November 17-19 to attend the 17th session of the Inter-governmental Joint Commission" on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said. Besides co-chairing the Joint Commission session with Russian Vice Premier Sergei Ivanov, Krishna will finalise the non-military cooperation agenda for the Moscow summit next month.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Russia on December 16-17 to attend the Summit at the invitation of President Dmitry Medvedev.
Krishna is also scheduled to hold key talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, Lukashevich said.
Addressing the Fifth Indo-Russian Business Forum in the presence of Commerce Minister Anand Sharma yesterday, Russian Vice Premier Ivanov announced that the first block of Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu will be commissioned by the end of this year. He also said India will be the main Russian partner in the commercialisation of the GLONASS, a space-based navigation system to rival the US Pentagon-controlled Global Positioning System (GPS).
According to earlier Russian media reports, during his last month`s Moscow visit for the Joint Inter-governmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation, Defence Minister AK Antony had reached an agreement for receiving signals from GLONASS military segment for precision guidance of Indian missiles and aircraft.
PTI