'Indo-Pacific Region Never Existed, Made Up to Drag India Into Anti-China Schemes': Russian FM Lavrov
The Wire Staff
New Delhi: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stirred debate with a series of blunt remarks about the West’s intentions against China by using India. As Lavrov hoped “that our Indian friends, they can see this provocation clearly,” his words were a reminder that India’s foreign policy under the Modi government is under close scrutiny in Moscow.
Speaking at a security conference in Perm on Thursday (May 29), Lavrov claimed, “We spoke to our Indian friends back then and they told us that their interest in joining the Quad is exclusively of trade of economic nature and cooperation in other peaceful areas.”
Yet, he warned, “other countries from the Quad are already trying, already insisting on organising naval exercises and other military exercises not, not under the Quad edges… they try to involve all the four countries into these exercises. And I’m sure that our Indian friends, they can see this provocation clearly”.
The Russian foreign minister, scheduled to travel to Delhi in June, said that “the “Indo-Pacific region” which had never existed” was made up by the NATO in 2022, “so as to drag India into their anti-China schemes”.
Lavrov’s critique didn’t stop at the Quad. He accused the West of a “divide and conquer” strategy, saying, “the West has started calling [Asia-Pacific] the Indo-Pacific region to give its policy a clear anti-China orientation – expecting thereby to additionally drive a wedge between our great friends and neighbours India and China”.
He added, “This is a policy that Russian President Vladimir Putin recently highlighted again – ‘divide and conquer’”.
On the diplomatic front, Lavrov called for reviving the Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral, arguing the “time has come” to restart meetings, as “an understanding has been reached between India and China on how to calm the situation on the border”.
The RIC, dormant since the Galwan clashes of June 2020, is seen by Moscow as a counterweight to Western-led groupings and a way to “harmonise interests among major powers and civilisations across Eurasia”.
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