Moscow looks at old ties, new chemistry

‘‘The new Indian government, in its very first declaration related to foreign policy, reiterated its commitment to further develop cooperation with Russia,’’ said Alexander Yakovenko, spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry. ‘‘In Russia and India, there exists a resilient national consensus on the development of our multi-faceted bilateral relations.’’ Besides, most of the government representatives who will handle bilateral relations with Russia are old hands.

Singh was finance minister in 1991-96, Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee was co-chairman of Indo-Russian intergovernmental commission on trade, economic, scientific-technical and cultural cooperation in 1994-95 and foreign minister in 1995-96; National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister J.N. Dixit was the foreign secretary from 1991-94.

‘‘Undoubtedly, these Indian leaders made a great contribution to the development of Russia-India relations and did everything possible to save all that was useful created by previous generations,’’ he said, referring to the tough period in the early 90s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Agencies said Putin today delayed his departure for India by a few hours due to an urgent meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Leonid Kuchma. Kuchma is rushing to Moscow this evening on a blitz visit for consultations on the stormy developments in his country after the disputed presidential polls, Kremlin spokesman Alexei Gromov said. Putin was earlier expected to reach Delhi around 1 am tomorrow.