Diplomacy: Dr. Jaishankar meets his Ukrainian counterpart Kuleba
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Amid increasing efforts to end the ongoing, 25-month-long war between Russia and Ukraine, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar had a crucial meeting on Friday with his visiting Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in the national capital.
Kuleba’s visit comes amid efforts to seek a peaceful resolution to the over two-year-old Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Russia had invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. All efforts to end the war have failed so far. The two countries have lost hundreds of thousands of lives, and wasted resources worth billions of dollars, and millions of Ukrainians have fled to neighboring countries.
After the war broke out, India had evacuated nearly 20,000 Indian and other students from Ukraine.
In September 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tried to broker peace when he told Russian President Vladimir Putin that “this is not an era of war.”
Russia is also feeling the pressure, sanctions, and isolation from the international community. The West, which was aiding Ukraine so far, is also pulling back. Last week, when Islamist terrorists killed about 140 Russians near Moscow, the US revealed that it had already warned Russia about the attacks.
In the backdrop of these efforts, the two ministers’ meeting took place in Hyderabad House as part of a bilateral engagement.
Foreign Affairs Minister Kuleba, who arrived in New Delhi on Thursday, is on a two-day visit to India.
“Welcome FM @DmytroKuleba of Ukraine to Hyderabad House. Look forward to our discussions today,” Dr. Jaishankar posted on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) ahead of their talks.
The EAM also shared a photograph of him shaking hands with his Ukranian counterpart at the Hyderabad House.
On Thursday, Kuleba posted on X, “I began my visit to New Delhi upon @DrSJaishankar’s invitation. The Ukrainian-Indian cooperation is important and we will be reinvigorating ties. Building on the dialogue between @ZelenskyyUa and @NarendraModi, we will pay specific attention to the Peace Formula.”
During his weekly press briefing on Thursday, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, in response to a query on Kuleba’s visit, said there will be a “bilateral engagement with the EAM in which they will go over a gamut of issues that lie in the domain of bilateral relations.”
They will also “review the Inter-governmental Commission that was held earlier,” he said.
The two ministers will also discuss regional and global issues of common concern, Jaiswal said, adding several other engagements are also lined up for the Ukrainian minister.
“Our position is very clear on peace initiatives and how we look at the Ukraine-Russia conflict. We continue to encourage the peaceful resolution of the conflict through dialogue and diplomacy and remain open to engaging all ways and means that would help achieve this objective,” the MEA spokesperson said replying to a query on India’s position on the Peace Conference in Switzerland.
The peace formula proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2022 follows 10 principles aimed at ensuring a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.
