Washington, Sept 22: India is involved in a set of ongoing conversations with interlocutors on all sides to find a way to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict, a top Indian diplomat said on Sunday, noting that there is still quite a bit of work remaining to be done.
Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said the people see value in India’s engagement in these conversations.
“We are involved in a set of ongoing conversations with interlocutors on all sides. Obviously, the people see value in India’s engagement in these conversations, and we are able to talk to multiple interlocutors,” Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told reporters in New York during a special briefing on the first day of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s three-day visit to the US.
“This is not something that is going to have an outcome in the present stage because there is still quite a bit of work that remains to be done,” Misri said in response to a question.
At the moment, these are very important conversations that are going on with multiple people on all sides of this conflict, he added.
Prime Minister Modi on August 23 visited Ukraine and conveyed to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that both Ukraine and Russia should sit together without wasting time to end the ongoing war and that India was ready to play an “active role” to restore peace in the region.
His nearly nine-hour visit to Ukraine, the first by an Indian prime minister since its independence in 1991, came six weeks after he held summit talks with President Vladimir Putin that triggered anguish in some Western countries.
In his talks with Zelenskyy in Kyiv, Modi said India was on the side of peace since the beginning of the conflict and he would even like to contribute personally to a peaceful resolution of the crisis.
In response to another question, Misri said Bangladesh also figured in the discussions that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in his bilateral and multilateral meetings.
“There was an exchange of views with regard to the situation there,” he said. (PTI)
