3 min readNew DelhiAug 29, 2020 02:02 AM IST
First published on: Aug 29, 2020 at 02:02 AM IST
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is likely to travel to Moscow for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Defence Ministers’ meeting on September 3 and 4, sources said on Friday. This will be his second visit to Moscow since the border stand-off with China began in early May.
Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu on Friday told the Indian ambassador in Moscow, D B Venkatesh Varma, that he looked forward to meeting Singh in Moscow next week. Shoigu conveyed this at the India Defence Pavilion at Kubinka outside Moscow.
This will be an opportunity for Singh to also meet his Chinese counterpart Wei Fenghe, who is also likely to attend the SCO Defence Ministers’ meeting.
With Indian and Chinese soldiers locked in a border standoff for the last three-and-half months, this could provide an opportunity to resolve the situation.
On June 24, Singh and Wei had attended the military parade in Moscow to mark the 75th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Germany in World War Two.
New Delhi is also considering sending External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to Russia next month, around September 9 to 11, where he will have the opportunity to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discuss steps to resolve the ongoing standoff.
If that works out, it will be their first in-person meeting, although the two have met via video conferencing during the Russia-India-China (RIC) Foreign Ministers’ meeting in June. They have also had a phone conversation on June 17, two days after the Galwan clash in which 20 Indian soldiers were killed.
Before the SCO Foreign Ministers’ meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will chair a large-format meeting of BRICS foreign ministers on September 4, to be held via videoconference. At this meeting, views on topical international matters will be exchanged. This meet will be attended by Jaishankar and Wang, sources said.
Hectic diplomatic activity between New Delhi and Beijing is again gaining pace through Russian interlocutors. Ambassador Varma has been constantly in touch with Russian officials.
The Indian envoy also had a conversation with Deputy Minister in Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov on Friday, in which topics of “cooperation in multilateral associations and upcoming bilateral contacts at various levels were discussed”, officials said.
Earlier this week, Raj Kumar, the Secretary of Defence Production, visited Moscow and held talks on the manufacturing in India the spare parts of Russian equipment supplied to India.
On the LAC stand-off, MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava on Thursday had said that a “complete disengagement requires re-deployment of troops by each side towards their regular posts on their respective sides of the LAC”.
“It is natural that this can be done only through mutually agreed reciprocal actions. Thus it is important to bear in mind that achieving this requires agreed actions by both sides,” he said.
Rajnath Singh and Wei Fenghe. (File) 
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