Moscow strictly observed all rituals of the Russia-India friendship when receiving India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (photo).
Photo: AP
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Delhi Might Turn Back on Moscow
// Russia-India partnership cracked
India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is on a two-day official visit to Moscow, held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday. Despite official declarations that Moscow-Delhi relations are cloudless, the 8th annual Russia-India summit was marred by the non-signing of a key agreement on nuclear cooperation. However, postponing for an undefined time period to sign the agreement on Russia’s participation in building new nuclear power plants in India is just the tip of the iceberg of growing discord between the long-standing strategic partners. India’s turn towards the U.S. threatens to make it leave the orbit of Russia’s politics in Asia.
Relations are Cold, that is Hot
Ahead of the official visit of India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Moscow, where he arrived on Sunday evening, India suddenly announced it is not ready to sign the agreement on cooperation in building additional energy units for the nuclear power station in
Koodankulam, as well as building Russia-designed nuclear plants in other Indian sites. Considering that the nuclear agreement was a keystone in the package of documents prepared for the summit, observers decided that the Russia-India summit is in danger of failure for the first time in the bilateral relations’ entire history.
Leading Indian mass media immediately caught up the subject of the upcoming ‘cooldown’ in the Russia-India relations, seemingly idyllic until recently. Consequently, the Indian prime minister’s press service and the officials accompanying him to Moscow had to urgently disavow apprehensions that the Moscow-Delhi strategic partnership had cracked. On Sunday, ITAR-TASS spread the interview of PM Manmohan Singh, who characterized the Moscow-Delhi relations as “wonderful”. Afterwards, India’s Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon reassured journalists who accompanied the prime minister onboard the plane flying to Moscow. “These relations are not cold; they are hot. Any speculations about the alleged cooldown have nothing in common with the reality. Russia is the only country with which we cooperate in so many spheres,” assured the high-ranking Indian diplomat. India’s embassy in Moscow firmly denied the version about tensions or crisis in the bilateral relations as well. “Reread the last statement of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. One cannot say it better than he did,” suggested Romesh Chandra, press attaché at the Indian embassy in Moscow.
Without Political Declaration and Nuclear Agreement
During their meeting in the Kremlin on Monday, the Russian and the Indian leaders tried to completely lift all issues and doubts concerning the state of bilateral relations. “Our relations have a long-standing history and develop in the best way,” said Vladimir Putin. In his turn, the Indian guest noted Putin’s “large personal contribution” to strengthening the Russia-India relations.
Three important intergovernmental agreements were signed in the presence of both leaders. These are the agreements on using the funds coming from the repayment of India’s arrears of old Soviet credits, on cooperation in the struggle against drug trafficking, and on cooperation in developing a new multipurpose transport aircraft.
At the same time, the harvest of bilateral agreements of this summit is more modest than in the previous years. For the first time in 8 years (summits were annually hosted since 2000 by Delhi and Moscow in turns), the parties did not sign a bilateral political declaration, in which they traditionally declare common purposes in building the modern world order. On the whole, the initially planned package of documents to be signed was far more impressive. Besides, the key agreement on nuclear cooperation is absent in the package, of which the parties preferred to keep silence on Monday, and which is quite symbolic.
There are different versions concerning what made India take a timeout. Some think that India does not hurry to sign the nuclear agreement with Russia because it apprehends criticism from the IAEA and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which has not yet lifted restrictions on nuclear cooperation with India. Delhi asks Moscow to wait, so that in future India gets green light from the NSG and so that nothing hampers its nuclear cooperation with Russia later on. Others believe that, by signing the nuclear agreement with Delhi, Moscow was trying to get ahead of the U.S., which coordinated with India a draft agreement on cooperation in nuclear energy peaceful usage (the so-called agreement 123) in July 2007. However, Delhi decided not to vex geese in Washington, and put off signing the nuclear deal with Moscow.
Non-Love Triangle
Meanwhile, observers in Delhi think the nuclear agreement’s non-signing in Moscow is just the tip of the iceberg of growing discord over foreign policy, military equipment, trade and economic relations between the “unique strategic partners”. These issues have not reached critical mass yet, and have not significantly aggravated the relations which are quite inert. Nevertheless, the trend is obvious. By the way, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had to acknowledge ahead of the summit in the Kremlin that there appeared ‘clouds’ on the bilateral cooperation’s cloudless sky. “There are some rough edges in the sentiments,” said Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov. “We are determined to keep up friendship with India,” the diplomat hurried to add. “India – Russia’s friend of all times”, -- the ministry has not used such expressions when speaking of India until recently. It was also quite symbolic that in spite of usual practice, two key Indian ministers who visited Moscow last month and who were involved in preparing the summit (Foreign Secretary Pranab Mukherjee and Defense Secretary Arackaparambil Kurian Antony) did not receive an audience with Vladimir Putin. Moreover, Mukherjee could not meet even with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. The official excuse was Lavrov’s tight schedule due to the visit if US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Moscow, which happened at the same time with the Indian ministers’ visit.
However, it is quite likely that denying presidential audience to the ministers was a hint that Moscow is not satisfied with everything in India’s foreign policy, including its stand on creating a US-Japanese missile defense system in the Pacific Ocean. In late October, Harbin hosted a three-sided summit of Russia’s, China’s, and India’s foreign ministers, who discussed the Pacific Ocean missile defense program of the U.S. and its military-political allies in the region. While the Russian and the Chinese ministers expressed overt antagonism to US plans, their Indian counterpart Mukherjee preferred not to mention the missile defense issue and refrained from anti-US speeches.
The press release which followed the triangle’s meeting in Harbin no longer mentioned the statement that India, Russia, and China share a common approach to key geopolitical trends in the 21st century (that wording first appeared in the joint three-sided statement of the foreign ministers adopted in 2005 in Vladivostok).
Another sign that Delhi might get drawn into the orbit of US politics is the recent consultations on creating a union of Asian and Pacific democracies according to Japan’s initiative. The union will include the U.S., Japan, Australia, and India. Russia has already expressed negative attitude to the idea, regarding it as a relapse into old bloc-wise thinking of the Cold War times.
The current Russia-India summit, which took place while India began turning towards the U.S., allowed the parties to lift some tension of last months. However, it is evident that the differences are not short-term, that the “rough edges” will multiply, and that the issue of keeping India as the key partner in Asia within the orbit of Russia’s influence might arise later on.
Sergei Strokan
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 13, 2007
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