The freshly-declassified US strategic framework for the Indo-Pacific region will not hamper the special partnership between New Delhi and Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.
Last week, the White House declassified the Indo-Pacific strategic framework that guides the United States' policies in the region. The document was supposed to remain classified until 2042. Among other things, it provides for stronger assistance to India, including in its territorial dispute with China.
"We are friends with India, and we are doing the utmost to make sure that India and China, our two great friends and brothers, live in peace with one another. This is our policy, which we promote not only in the context of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and not only in the format of BRICS, but we have a special trilateral format - the troika of Russia-India-China," Mr Lavrov said at the yearly press conference.
The Russian foreign minister described India as a "very close, very strategic, very special and very privileged partner," with which Moscow has a close partnership across such areas as economy, innovations, high tech and military cooperation, as well as close coordination in international organizations, such as the United Nations and BRICS.
"I think that we all are wise enough to understand and to see that if a strategy is indeed intended as being not inclusive but rather divisive, then the wisdom of our countries would certainly prevail. And in no way our closest cooperation and partnership with India is going to be affected," Lavrov said.
According to the Russian minister, the key to preserving good interstate relations even on issues where there is no absolute understanding is a "sincere, open and frank dialogue."
Another peculiarity that many spotted in the declassified document was that it did not describe Russia as a threat as opposed to the public document on the US national security strategy.
