Foreign Ministers of Russia, India and China (RIC) will meet next week for the 15th RIC ministerial conference where wide-ranging discussions on the current situation in the region, including Afghanistan, the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula, will take place. Besides, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will also hold bilateral talks with her Russian counterpart Sergey lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
This will be the second meeting of these three FMs in last 10 days. The trio had recently met on December 1 in Sochi in Russia for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting. The RIC meeting comes days after India-Japan-Australia-US held their first quadrilateral talks in Philippines last month following which the Indian Government made it clear that it is part of various pluri-lateral, multilateral meetings with like-minded people. RIC is one among them.
“The RIC meeting is expected to review global and regional issues of mutual interest as well as discuss trilateral exchanges and activities,” Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement. lavrov and Wang Yi will also hold bilateral meetings with Swaraj where several issues pertaining to bilateral relations will come up.
It is expected Swaraj may raise the issue of India’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group with Russia and China. Besides, during the talks on terrorism issue pertaining to sanctioning of Masood Azhar by the United Nations Security Council’s 1267 Committee is also likely to be talked about. India is also expected to raise concerns over the release of former Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Hafeez Saeed. The issue of connectivity in the larger context is also likely to be discussed.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar and Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia, Sergey Ryabkov, held consultations on disarmament, non-proliferation and important international issues.