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In Mutual Interest
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Devoid of excitement, India-Russia ties have remained consistently resilient |
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By Kanwal Sibal
India’s relationship with Russia has remained remarkably steady despite
far-reaching changes in the international landscape. If this shows the
resilience of the relationship, it also denotes the absence of factors that
could boost the relationship into a higher trajectory. A dependable and moored
relationship with a major power is, of course, an asset of great diplomatic
value, even if the element of excitement is missing, especially when India’s
relationships with some other key power centres is acquiring new dimensions
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India and Russia had their 12th summit meeting at Prime Minister/President level at Moscow from December 15-17. In an age when media is constantly ‘breaking news’, leaders are expected to show some new dramatic achievement for their high level diplomatic confabulations to be considered a success. If demonstrable progress is not shown on issues in the public eye, the focus shifts to ‘problems’ in the relationship or inadequacies of diplomatic effort. A steady relationship implies incremental progress, stability and consistency, not necessarily eye-catching breakthroughs.
The items on the agenda of Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow were the known ones. The most important item, earlier the most promising one and now a rather vexing one, was that of civilian nuclear cooperation. It was expected that the agreement on Kudankulam 3 and 4 would be signed during the visit. The negotiations for it had been concluded, including very favourable credit terms, but owing to the on-going public agitation against the commissioning of Kudankulam 1 and 2, it was not thought prudent to sign an agreement on expanding the number of reactors on the site at this juncture.
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