"No Meeting Agreed": Sources On Push For Russia-India-China Grouping
"No meeting of the RIC format has been agreed to at this point in time. There are no discussions underway on its scheduling," a source said.
The Ministry of External Affairs remained non-commital regarding the revival of Russia-India-China (RIC) mechanism in a weekly briefing. Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, "This is a mechanism where three countries come together to discuss global and regional issues. When this meeting happens, we will work out a mutually convenient date and let you know."
The trilateral dialogue between Russia-India-China (RIC) hoped to create a trilateral Eurasian power that could balance Western dominance. The comments from India's foreign ministry comes months after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the work within the troika should be resumed.
"I would like to confirm our genuine interest in earliest resumption of the work within the format of troika - Russia, India, China - which was established many years ago on the initiative of Yevgeny Primakov (former Russian PM), and which has organised meetings over 20 times at the ministerial level since then, not only at level of foreign policy chiefs, but also heads of other economic, trade and financial agencies of three countries," Lavrov said in June.
China too expressed its support for Russia's initiative to revive the dormant Russia-India-China (RIC) troika, saying the trilateral cooperation not only serves the interest of the three countries but also the security and stability of the region and the world.
Russian news portal Izvestia on Thursday quoted Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko as saying that Moscow expects the resumption of the RIC format and is negotiating on this issue with Beijing and New Delhi.
"This topic appears in our negotiations with both of them. We are interested in making this format work, because these three countries are important partners, besides the founders of BRICS," Rudenko said.
"Therefore, the absence of this format, in my opinion, looks inappropriate. In this regard, we expect that the countries will agree to resume work within the framework of the RIC -- of course, when relations between these states reach a level that allows them to work in a trilateral format," he said.
Earlier, the work was stalled because of the coronavirus and then later by the India-China military standoff at Eastern Ladakh in 2020.
Moreover, India is a member of the Quad, the alliance of the US, India, Japan and Australia which Beijing perceives as a group aiming to thwart its rise, hence there is increasing interest by Russia and China to revive RIC.
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