India does not impose sanctions, only respects UN sanctions: EAM on West’s sanctions on Russia

Kyiv/New Delhi, Aug 24 (Agency) External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar today said that India does not impose sanctions on any country, and only respects the sanctions imposed by the United Nations – in reference to the Western sanctions imposed on Russia over the Ukraine conflict. Answering questions at a media briefing on the bilateral talks between PM Modi and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he was asked about “India’s position on the application of international sanctions against Russia, and under what conditions India would join aboard the sanctions regime or some part of it”. “On the sanctions issue, I would say, look, generally, in India, we do not impose sanctions on any country. It’s not part of our political, diplomatic history. If at all there are sanctions, I mean, we generally look at UN sanctions.

Those are the sanctions that we respect.” To a question on Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Moscow last month and his exchanging hugs with President Putin, that upset the West very much, the EAM said: “You know, in our part of the world, when people meet people, they are given to embracing each other. It may not be part of your culture, but I assure you it’s part of ours. So in fact, today I think I saw the Prime Minister also embrace President Zelenskyy, and I’ve seen him do it with a number of other leaders in a number of other places. So I think perhaps we have a slightly cultural gap here in terms of what these courtesies mean.”

The questioner had said that besides the Modi-Putin hug, the West was also quite upset to see India overtake China in terms of the biggest importer of Russian crude oil. And they were also disappointed that there hasn’t been an explicit condemnation of the invasion of Ukraine. “So in light of that, I’m just wondering whether you had difficulty today persuading President Zelenskyy that India is not favoring Russia but is indeed pursuing a policy of Non-Alignment. “ On the oil imports from Russia, the EAM said: “Look, India is a big oil consumer. It’s a big oil importer because we don’t have oil. Now, it’s not like there’s a political strategy to buy oil. There is an oil strategy to buy oil. There’s a market strategy to buy oil. So the figures of where we get our oil imports go up and down. It depends on the state of the market. But it would definitely… I think the fact that the market is tight, that today big suppliers like Iran and Venezuela, who used to supply India, are constrained from operating freely in the markets, I think is a factor which needs to be taken into account.”

“Regarding the conversation between the prime minister and President Zelenskyy, I think it was a perfectly convivial conversation. I think it was very constructive. I think there was a lot that we said, which he heard with a great deal of attention. “He knows that we mean well by Ukraine. He knows that we are today very, very keen that this conflict should come to an end. And essentially what the message from our side to him, which surely would have not come as a surprise to him, is that if there is anything that we can do in any way, in sort of upfront or behind or supporting somebody, it’s the objective that we are interested in, rather than the process. We are willing to do whatever we can, because we do think that the continuation of this conflict is terrible, obviously for Ukraine itself and for the world as well. “