Modi-Putin Meet: PM Hails Strong Partnership, Russian President Calls India 'Time-Tested Friend'
Russian President Vladimir Putin said: "We perceive India as a great power, a friendly nation, and a time-tested friend".
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday held the 21st India-Russia summit as they met at the Hyderabad House in the national capital to talk about the ties between the two countries.
Speaking at the meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, PM Modi said: "Despite the challenges posed by COVID, there is no change in the pace of growth of India-Russia relations. Our special and privileged strategic partnership continues to become stronger."
"In the last few decades, the world witnessed many fundamental changes and different kinds of geopolitical equations emerged but the friendship of India and Russia remained constant," he added, as quoted by news agency ANI.
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He further stressed that the relation between India and Russia "is truly a unique and reliable model of interstate friendship".
In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin said: "We perceive India as a great power, a friendly nation, and a time-tested friend. The relations between our nations are growing and I am looking into the future".
Putin mentioned that the mutual investments between the two countries stand at about 38 billion with a bit more investment coming from the Russian side. "We cooperate greatly in military and technical sphere like no other country. We develop high technologies together as well as produce in India," he emphasised, as quoted by ANI.
Talking about the matters of terrorism and the situation in Afghanistan, he said: "We are certainly worried about everything related to terrorism and the fight against it. Terrorism is also fight against drug trafficking and organized crime. In this regard, we cannot but worry about the situation and how it is developing in Afghanistan".
Earlier, welcoming "friend" Putin, PM Modi took to Twitter and wrote: "Welcome to India my friend President Putin. Our meeting today will strengthen our Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership. The initiatives that we take today will further increase the scope of our cooperation to new areas".
Informing about the summit, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said that "President Putin's visit is short but highly productive and substantive". "There were excellent discussions between the two leaders. 28 agreements/MoUs were concluded during this visit. These agreements include those between government to government and business to business," he stated.
"The fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to visit India for our annual summit is an indication of the importance he attaches to the bilateral relationship and his personal rapport with PM Narendra Modi," the Foreign Secretary mentioned.
He further said that "PM Modi thanked President Putin for the welfare of the Indian community in Russia, especially during the COVID pandemic. Both leaders discussed the need for mutual recognition of vaccine certification to enable easier travel by our citizens to each other's countries".
This is the first in-person meeting between the two leaders after they met on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in 2019 in Brasilia. There have been six telephonic conversations between PM Modi and President Putin since then apart from the virtual meetings that they attended for multilateral summits.
The visit is in continuation of the tradition of annual summits held alternately in India and Russia.
Earlier in the day, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu under the framework of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation.
Separately, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. Then the foreign and defence ministers of the two sides held the '2+2' dialogue.
Notably, India and Russia inked an agreement for joint production of over six lakh AK-203 assault rifles at a manufacturing facility in Uttar Pradesh's Amethi besides firming up another pact on military cooperation for 10 years. The rifles will be manufactured for the Indian armed forces at a cost of around Rs 5000 crore.
The agreements were signed at the 20th meeting of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military and Military-Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MandMTC).
The meeting, co-chaired by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his Russian counterpart Gen Sergey Shoigu, also discussed ways to further boost strategic cooperation including ramping up of joint production of military equipment.
The two sides also inked a pact on amending the agreement on cooperation in the field of manufacturing of the Kalashnikov series of small arms that was originally sealed in February 2019.
The most important of the four agreements was the pact on manufacturing of 6,01,427 AK-203 assault rifles (7.63X39mm) through an Indo-Russia Rifles Private Limited (IRPL).
The 10-year pact on military cooperation is a renewal of an existing framework.
(With Agency Inputs)
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