The U.S.’s top diplomat for South and Central Asia Donald Lu has said External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and his American counterpart Antony Blinken had an honest discussion on Russia and Ukraine.
“On the issue of Russia and Ukraine, I can say that there was, between Secretary Blinken and External Affairs Minister Jaishankar, an open and honest discussion,” the U.S. Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia said during a briefing call to discuss Mr. Blinken’s travel to Asia, including for the Quad meeting in Melbourne, as well as the Biden administration’s recently released Indo-Pacific strategy.
“I think this is reflective of the close relationship we have with one another. This is a complex issue for the United States. It’s a complex issue for India as well. We share values and we talk about every issue, including the tough ones,” Mr. Lu said.
India, on January 31, abstained from a procedural vote at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on whether to discuss the Russia-Ukraine issue. Russia had thanked India for its position.
The meeting, however, took place and India called for “quiet and constructive” diplomacy to resolve the tensions. The discussions between the West, led by the United States, and Moscow, have been anything but quiet, with frequent verbal sparring from both sides.
The Biden administration has warned that Russian forces along the border of Ukraine could invade any day – a claim Russia has pushed back against.
“There was a strong consensus in that [Quad] meeting that there needs to be a diplomatic, peaceful resolution to this. One of the core tenets of the Quad is to reinforce the rules-based international order, and that is a rules-based order that applies equally in the Indo-Pacific as it does in Europe, as it does anywhere else,” State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said on Wednesday.
“We know that our Indian partners are committed to that rules-based international order,” he said, going on to draw a parallel between, presumably, China’s actions in the Indo-Pacific, and Russia’s actions in Europe.
“There are any number of tenets to that order. One of them is that borders cannot be redrawn by force, that large countries cannot bully small countries; that only the people of a particular country can be in a position to choose their foreign policy, their partnerships, their alliances, their associations. Those are principles that apply equally in the Indo-Pacific as they do in Europe,” he said.
Apart from Russia and Ukraine, New Delhi’s purchase of a multibillion-dollar Russian missile shield, the S-400 Triumf, is a challenge that the U.S. and India are grappling with. Mr. Price declined to confirm if Mr. Jaishankar and Mr. Blinken had talked about the S-400 (or potential U.S. sanctions for the purchase), saying only that the broad defence relationship was discussed.
