India would like to work more closely with Russia on taking forward co-op in Indo-Pacific: Shringla

India would like to work more closely with Russia on taking forward cooperation in Indo-Pacific region, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said here on Wednesday.

Addressing a meeting hosted by Diplomatic Academy of Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he said discussion on relationship between Indian and Russia can be complete without mention of Indo-Pacific.

"We would like to work more closely with Russia on taking forward cooperation in region, in particular along with our friends from ASEAN, South East Asia and under organisations like ASEAN regional forum and East Asia summit," he said.

"From our perspective, it signifies seamless interface of Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean… We see it as a free, open and inclusive region which embraces all of us in a common pursuit of progress and prosperity in region," he said.

Shringla, who arrived in Moscow on Tuesday on his first foreign trip this year, said that it was only "fitting" that Moscow is his first abroad visit in 2021 amid COVID-19 pandemic.

Foreign Secretary, who met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov, said his meetings were "fruitful and productive".

Shringla also mentioned India's desire to enhance cooperation with Russia in areas like civil nuclear power, defence, oil and gas and trade.

He said counter-terrorism cooperation is an important area and two countries are working toger in multilateral and bilateral formats.

"We strongly believe re can be justification for any or whatsoever form of terrorism wher it is based on ideological, political, ethnical or any or reason," he said.

"We are convinced that unprecedented threat requires cooperation of all global communities without double standard and selectivity. Countries should work toger to disrupt cross border terror networks and ir financing. We call for early conclusion of international convention on terrorism to combat global terrorism. We should work toger to combat terrorism,” he said.

ting that India and Russia have a long history of working toger at international and multilateral organisations like Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, BRICS, G-20, he said, "Our two countries regard establishment of multipolar, global relations as a reflection of inter-state relations in 21st century." "A multi-polar world and a multi-polar Asia is important for both India and Russia and this is t possible without involvement of both countries," he said.

He also said that re is a need to reform UN particularly powerful UN Security Council to make it more representative of contemporary reality.

"It is a time to bring changes in world body to make it more responsive and address new challenges we are facing," he said.

"Traditional threats which UN had seen like inter-state wars are today overtaken by new challenges, new threats and security concerns which we didn't have before. We are w talking about epidemics and pandemics, natural disasters, intra-state conflicts, humanitarian crisis, human rights crisis of all nature which were t re a few decades ago," he said.

Shringla said India and Russia are cooperating closely with war-torn Afghanistan, which is currently going through a very critical phase.

"We are cooperating to make this area as stable as possible. We have provided USD 3 billion as project assistance in Afghanistan in areas like health, education and roads. Bringing peace in Afghanistan is important for bringing stability in region and for global security. India and Russia are working toger to ensure peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan,” he said.

"We are seeing an increasing level of violence which is t conducive for peaceful talks. We have advocated immediate and comprehensive ceasefire as talks and violence cant go hand in hand," he added. PTI PMS/SCY ZH AKJ ZH ZH