Putin expected to visit India in Oct. for bilateral meet India blasts Pak’s close ally Turkey

Russian President Vladimir

Putin is expected to visit India in October this year for the annual bilateral summit between the two countries, New Delhi said on Thursday.

India said “regional and international issues of interest” are being discussed in exchanges between the two countries, a veiled indication perhaps to the current Sino-India military stand-off. India has time-tested strategic ties with Russia spanning decades especially in the defence sector but Russia also has close ties with China.

It may be recalled that about a month ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken to Russian President Putin and had “conveyed his keenness to welcome President Putin in India” for the (institutionalised annual formal) Bilateral Summit this year.

MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said that in the recent exchanges between the two sides, regional and international issues have also been discussed.

He said Mr Modi and Mr Putin had spoken on July 2 when the PM had congratulated him on the successful national vote on constitutional amendments in Russia.

“Then in the last week of June, Raksha Mantri (Rajnath Singh) had visited Moscow. The Indian military contingent had

Vladimir Putin

New Delhi: India on Thursday lambasted Pakistan’s close friend Turkey and asked it to refrain from interfering in India’s internal affairs on the Kashmir issue. Soon after Turkey reportedly said the revoking of Article 370 a year ago was not conducive to peace and security in the region, MEA said, terming Turkey’s views as “factually incorrect and biased”. Wednesday had seen the first anniversary of India’s revoking of Article 370, a Constitutional provision that had granted special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.

participated in the 75the anniversary of the victory in the 2nd world war. “Yesterday when foreign secretary (Harsh Vardhan Shringla) and the (Russian) deputy foreign minister spoke, they took stock of all these recent exchanges and the idea is to keep the momentum of these regular exchanges going on because due to the Covid situation, we have not been able to have visits,” he said.

“But there is a full calendar of forthcoming high-level exchanges between the two sides. The SCO and Brics foreign ministers meetings, the NSAs’ meeting, the Defence ministers’ meeting are scheduled. Of course, we have the annual bilateral summit coming up in October when President Putin is expected to visit India,” he said.