US State Secretary, Antony Blinken recently said that Russia was out of necessity a partner of choice for India when US was not in a position to stand as an acquaintance. Although America was unable to develop ties with Russia earlier, India didn’t have any problem in doing that.
Blinken also informed about Biden, the US President’s spending a generous amount of time directly interacting with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and India’s leadership. Currently there is a strategic convergence between India and the United States of America which is growing rapidly. According to the Secretary of State declared that New Delhi built a partnership with Moscow out of sheer necessity. On Wednesday he told lawmakers that the relationship with India goes back decades. US is investing in the effort of being a partner. During a Congressional hearing by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, Senator William Hagerty asked Blinken a question about his views on the relationship of India-US to which his response was that China plays a major role in the ongoing convergence.
Hagerty said that what he sees before them is something he is certain that’s very frustrating in a short-term condition when they have their differences and Blinken needs to deal with that each day. But in the long-term, there is a great opportunity to perform more good deeds in the 21st century which will stem from the strategic partnership between US and India. Blinken in response agreed and said he shares the same perspective of the Republican Senator on a large scale. According to him, this companionship holds the potential to be one of the most foundational and important partnerships going forward over the next decades.
Blinken also mentions about the energising the Quad by US that brings India together with Japan, Australia and America. It has been a very important aspect for strengthening the collaboration across a whole variety of fronts with India. He finds this moment greatly invested in inflection of strategists and quite interesting. What the top diplomat of US really means is quite a number of countries are currently reviewing some of their interests and relationships, particularly when it comes to their partnership with Russia.
Amidst Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24th January of this year, US has been constantly pressing India and other nations for reducing their reliance on Russian oil, weapons and other goods and imposing numerous sanctions on Moscow. Till date, India has not condemned the Ukrainian attack of Russia publicly and has been calling for the resolution of the war through diplomacy and dialogue. A non-permanent member of the powerful Security Council of UN for a two-year term that ends this year in December, India, has time and again abstained on resolutions against the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
India has abstained on more than five occasions on draft resolutions and procedural votes in the General Assembly, Security Council of UN and the Council of Human Rights which deplored aggression against Ukraine by Russia. Earlier this month, New Delhi condemned the “deeply disturbing” civilian killings report in Bucha, a Ukrainian city unequivocally. India supported the call for an investigation that will be independent as it underlined that diplomacy must prevail as the only viable option when innocent human lives are at stake.