New Delhi’s decades-long relationship with Moscow can’t be refashioned in months, the state department says
Washington doesn’t believe that it can swiftly disrupt the decades-long bilateral ties between India and Russia, US State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
During a briefing on Tuesday, Price was questioned about why groups, in which Washington and New Delhi participate jointly – including the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) of the US, India, Austria and Japan that held a summit on the same day – failed to put out a strong statement on Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
“India has a relationship with Russia that has developed over the course of decades,” while the conflict in Ukraine is ongoing for only three months,” Price responded, making it clear that it wasn’t long enough for authorities in Indian to somehow change their stance.
“We have never thought it realistic or possible to attempt to refashion or recontour a historic relationship that India has had with Russia – that has developed over the course of decades – in days, weeks, or even months,”He said.
The United States can be again thanks to the bipartisan effort made by the George W. Bush administration from 2001 through 2009. “a partner for India that we weren’t able to be when India’s relationship with Russia first developed during the Cold War,”The spokesman said so.
Washington-New Delhi cooperation spans economy, trade, and security. Washington is “confident that those ties will strengthen going forward,”He concluded.
India is reluctant to blame Russia for its sending troops to Ukraine late February. It also resists the US’s push to include Russia in the severe international sanctions. During the conflict, New Delhi began purchasing unprecedented amounts of Russian oil.
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Officially, India and Russia still refer to their relationship as “a” “special and privileged strategic partnership.” Those ties include not just economics and politics, but security as well, with 85% of India’s weapons systems being of Russian or Soviet origin, according to US research estimates.
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