Sochi: Russia and India maintain a high strategic level of partnership with close cooperation between the two countries’ defence ministries, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday at a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Our defence ministries maintain very close contacts and cooperation. It speaks about a very high strategic level of our partnership,” Putin was quoted as saying by TASS news agency.
The Russian leader also hailed joint activities of the two countries in the area of foreign politics, in particular within the UN, BRICS (an association of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
Modi’s nine-hour tour came after National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale visited Moscow earlier this month to discuss a way out of the US sanctions on Russian firms.
Putin is also expected to visit India later this year for the annual bilateral summit.
Modi said India and Russia have been friends for a long time and thanked President Putin for inviting him for the first-ever informal meeting at Sochi.
Modi recalled his first visit to Russia with then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2001 and said Putin was the first world leader whom he met after becoming the chief minister of Gujarat.
He said the seeds of the ‘strategic partnership’ sown by then Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Putin has now grown into a “special privileged strategic partnership” between the two countries.
Modi thanked Russia for playing a major role in helping India get a permanent membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation — an eight nation bloc which aims at military and economic cooperation between the member states. India and Pakistan were admitted last year into the organisation.
“We are working together on International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and BRICS,” Modi said.
Welcoming Prime Minister Modi to Sochi, Putin said his visit would give a fresh impetus to bilateral ties.
He said Russia and India have been cooperating on several fronts in the multilateral and the international forums. He also mentioned military-to-military cooperation between the two countries.
