Press Secretary to President (Shri Venu Rajamony): Good evening friends and thank you all for coming over to this hotel at short notice. We thought, with all the people on the streets and the logistical constraints this was the best way of briefing you on what happened.
I would invite the Foreign Secretary to brief you.
Foreign Secretary (Dr. S. Jaishankar): Good afternoon. Today the President participated in the Victory Day celebrations, many of you would have seen that on television. In the afternoon today there was a meeting between the President and President Putin. This meeting lasted about 45 minutes. It was a very wide-ranging review of our bilateral cooperation.
At the beginning of the meeting President Putin thanked our President for India’s participation at the Victory Day celebrations. He particularly appreciated the presence at the Parade a Grenadier military contingent, and he characterised the President’s presence and that of the military unit as a special demonstration of our special and privileged strategic partnership.
The President on his part recalled his presence at the Victory Day celebrations 20 years ago when he was Foreign Minister. And he stressed the decisive role that USSR had played in securing victory over Nazism and Fascism in the Second World War. He congratulated President Putin on the very impressive function at the Victory Day and thanked him for the hospitality and all the arrangements made for the President and his delegation.
As many of you would already be aware, the President has actually contributed to the strengthening of India-Russia relations in many capacities over decades including as Minister of Defence, as Minister of Finance and as Minister of External Affairs. And President Putin acknowledged the President’s many contributions to all aspects of India-Russia cooperation.
There was a very detailed discussion on the progress made in our bilateral cooperation focusing on initiatives that were launched at the summit meeting in December 2014 when President Putin was last in India. What I would like to do is to give you the main points of the discussion.
One, the two Presidents noted that the Defence Ministers and the Foreign Ministers had met after the summit; there was also a visit by the Speaker of the Russian Parliament to India. Two, on defence cooperation they noted that progress had been made in G2G cooperation in various areas. There was recognition that we had moved to an era of joint development and manufacturing. It was clear to us that the Russian defence industry was very keenly interested in pursuing projects under our Make in India initiative.
On civil nuclear energy cooperation there has been steady progress. The Kudankulam Nuclear Project-2 (KKNP2) is progressing satisfactorily towards commissioning. Contracts for supply of equipment for KKNP3 and 4 have been concluded. We had also in December constituted three Joint Working Groups to discuss different aspects of nuclear cooperation to take the level of cooperation to a higher plane. One of the three Joint Working Groups has already met; two others are likely to meet very soon.
On space cooperation, the Heads of our two Space agencies have drawn up a concrete plan for reinvigoration of our space cooperation, including marking in a suitable manner the 40thanniversary of the launch of Aryabhatta from the then Soviet Union.
On energy cooperation it was noted that ONGC’s investment in Sakhalin-1 had been very successful. Its MoU with Rosneft for exploration on the Arctic Shelf is being progressed. GAIL’s contract for LNG supply to India has entered into force.
Two, three other areas I would like to draw your attention to; one is trade and investment. The two Presidents agreed that we needed to work hard to achieve targets of USD 30 billion in trade and 15 billion for investment. And there was some discussion about the Joint Study Group which is to meet for a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) with the Eurasian Economic Union which will meet shortly, I believe in about a week, in Moscow.
Discussions of NMDC with Russian partner for investment in a fertiliser company in Russia are also in an advanced stage. In fact President Putin mentioned that there was an ongoing contract for purchase of potassium fertilisers from Russia that had been concluded for about 800,000 tonnes till next year.
Relating to trade and investments I also want to mention to you that our bovine meat exports to Russia have commenced, and we hope very soon that dairy products will follow.
We have been working with Russia and other partner countries to operationalise the International North-South Transport Corridor; and a stakeholders’ meeting is being held in Mumbai in June in this regard and a Council meeting in July.
We are also putting in place the regulatory framework on the Indian side to facilitate direct diamond exports from Russia to India. I think many of you would recall this was an issue which got some attention last December. We have had other useful discussions with Russian investors in infrastructure projects and in smart cities. And we have recently signed a protocol on the green corridor projects to facilitate customs clearances.
The President conveyed our Prime Minister’s greetings to President Putin on this important occasion, who reciprocated those greetings and underlined that he looked forward to meeting the Prime Minister in July at the BRICS Summit. This was broadly the bilateral meeting.
President Putin hosted a dinner for all the delegation Heads yesterday evening and at the Parade today the President had conversations with some of the other Heads of Governments and Heads of States which included the President of Vietnam, the President of Mongolia, the President of Palestine, the President of the Czech Republic, the UN Secretary General, and the Chinese President.
Today, by the Bengali Calendar, is the birth anniversary of Guru Rabindranath Tagore. So, the President paid homage at a statue of Tagore which was established in Moscow roughly 25 years ago. It is a very well-known place, and we actually had an event there. There was a rendition of Rabindra Sangeet, and President actually spoke briefly on the contribution that Rabindranath Tagore had made especially to international relations and international peace.
I think that broadly is the summary of what has happened today and yesterday evening. If you have any questions, we will be happy to respond.
Question: You mentioned that you are going to resume bovine meat exports to Russia. Bovine meat is becoming a rather vexing issue in India. How is India going to do this with ban on cow slaughter and …(Inaudible)…
Foreign Secretary: If your question is addressed domestically, you should ask it domestically. If your question is addressed to India-Russia trade, ...
Question: You are talking about meat export, you are not talking about livestock. It would be meat.
Ambassador to Russia (Shri P.S. Raghavan): Just one clarification. We are talking about bovine meat and not beef. So, it is buffalo meat we are talking about. We are talking about it from a Russian angle.
India is the world’s largest exporter of bovine meat. Russia had not so far given permission for import of bovine meat from India. They were importing beef and bovine meat from other countries. So, the progress which we are talking about in bilateral relations is Russia having now approved certain Indian companies for export of bovine meat into Russia which has started. Whether or not they can export or not is the Indian angle which you can ask in India. …(Inaudible)…
If I can add, this is actually part of a much larger dialogue of Indian agro exports into Russia partly because of the sanctions. In response to Western sanctions, Russia has import sanctions of its own which block imports of agro commodities from the European Union and other countries which have import sanction on it. This actually opens the field for agro exports from India, and that is why this process of registering. They have very strict phytosanitary controls. The process of Indian companies authorised to export to Russia is on. As Foreign Secretary said, bovine meat has already started, dairy is expected to start very soon. There are also some dairy companies which have been registered. And there is a move to expand the list of other Indian agro exporters certified to export to Russia.
Question: Did Russia react in any way to President’s statement yesterday that Russia is and will remain India’s largest defence partner?
Foreign Secretary: I would not describe it as reacting to that statement, I think the President described our broad approach and clearly there was discussion on defence cooperation.
Question: I think eventually Presidents of both Brazil and South Africa did not come for the Parade.
Ambassador to Russia: South Africa was there.
Foreign Secretary: Brazil did not come.
Question: The question I wanted to ask was a slightly broader one. Normally VE day as they say is commemorated here in Europe not even Asia. And yet what we are seeing is the pre-eminence of the Chinese President and the Indian President here. Would you say that this particular commemoration has also led to a further strengthening of the RIC Block, if you like?
Foreign Secretary: I am not quite sure I had put it in a manner in which you put it. I think the reason why so many Heads of Governments and Heads of States are here including our President is that (1) this is a very important day for Russians. Many of you would have been on the street, seen the public sentiment. It is very rare anywhere in the world that you see that kind of public sentiment about a historical happening. (2) I think anybody objective would recognise that the Russians really had a very unique contribution to make in the Second World War. Not everybody has always given it its due.
We are here frankly because of Russia. We are here (a) to recognise the Russian contribution and (b) to sort of signal to the Russian people that on this day which is so important for you we are here with you.
Question: Ahead of coming here, the EU certainly did speak formally to several Presidents in the region telling them not to attend. Did we get any kind of signal or conversation with the EU or the US regarding our presence here?
Foreign Secretary:No.
Press Secretary to President: Thank you very much.