Centre cites Covid-19 for calling off India-Russia annual summit, denounces Rahul Gandhi’s “false & misleading” claims
24 December, 2020 | Ojasvi Chauhan
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said that the India-Russia Annual Summit did not take place in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic, that was a mutually agreed decision between the tw...
The central government on Wednesday issued a statement saying that the annual India-Russia summit was being cancelled this year due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Centre refuted all other claims and speculations being made around the cancellation of the summit and called them false and misleading.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said that the India-Russia Annual Summit did not take place in 2020 because of the COVID pandemic, that was a mutually agreed decision between the two governments. He added that any imputation otherwise was false and misleading. He further said that spreading false stories in important relationships was particularly irresponsible.
Ahead of this statement by the Foreign Ministery, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had tweeted that damaging traditional relationships was short-sighted and was dangerous for the future of India.
Russia is a very important friend of India.
Damaging our traditional relationships is short-sighted and dangerous for our future. pic.twitter.com/U5VyFWeS6L
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) December 23, 2020
Sources suggest that the cancellation of the India-Russia annual summit is linked to Russia’s statements on reservations on India becoming a part of the Quadrilateral coalition or the Quad. As per a news outlet, Deputy Chief of the Russian mission, Roman Babushkin said that they were facing some attempts by some countries to create containment and alienation in the Indo-Pacific region which could threaten and jeopardise basic principles for regional cooperation, for example, ASEAN centrality and ASEAN unity, Quad would be detrimental to the inclusive dialogue in the region.