Lavrov pushes for more active Russia-India-China cooperation

NEW DELHI: Russian foreign minister

Sergey Lavrov

discussed with his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar efforts to develop and use Russia-India-China trilateral mechanism “more actively” in the interests of stabilising international relations and ensuring “equity in international affairs”.

“This is especially true given that all three countries – Russia, India and China – are now members of the UN Security Council. So we have a lot of plans,” he said. Since Russia started its military operation in Ukraine,

Lavrov

has only visited Turkey, India and China. He was responding to a query on Russia looking at China and India to make up for a likely dip in its energy exports. Russia had earlier this year also proposed a RIC summit.

“We are close partners with both countries. The three of us participate in a number of international formats... There is our “troika” – RIC (Russia, India, China),” he said.