Plans have not yet been made for a potential bilateral summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Foreign Ministry in New Delhi said on Thursday.
The clarification came after media reports cited Indian Ambassador to Moscow Pawan Kapoor as claiming that the two leaders could meet by the end of the year.
“I’ve seen some reports based on what our ambassador in Moscow said. I think he wasn’t quoted accurately, I don’t think there is an immediate date or plans for that,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi told reporters.
RIA Novosti previously cited Kapoor as saying that talks were at a “high level” regarding a potential summit between Putin and Modi by the end of 2023.
Diplomatic sources have confirmed to RT that while both sides remain in close contact and discussions on a potential meeting are being held at a high level, nothing has been decided so far.
Moscow and New Delhi have held annual bilateral summits since 2000. In December 2021, Putin visited New Delhi accompanied by a high-level delegation to discuss broader areas of economic, military, and cultural cooperation. The Russian president then met Modi in person in September 2022 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
The two leaders discussed bilateral relations and “global developments,” while Modi told Put that “today’s era is not an era of war.” “Democracy, diplomacy, and dialogue are important tools for us to find solutions. It is necessary to achieve peace in the future, and I am sure that we can discuss this. I welcome the opportunity to better understand your point of view,” the Indian prime minister stated.
In his opening remarks at the meeting, Putin said that Moscow understood New Delhi’s position on the conflict in Ukraine and “the concerns that you constantly express.”
“We will do our best to make it stop as soon as possible,” the Russian president added. “However, unfortunately, the opposing side, the leadership of Ukraine, announced that it was abandoning the negotiation process and declared that it wants to achieve its goals by military means, ‘on the battlefield,’ as they say.”
Bloomberg reported at the end of last year that Modi had allegedly refused to hold a bilateral summit with Putin, “after the Russian president threatened to use nuclear weapons” in Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Ministry denied the report, calling it a “misunderstanding” and noting that there were no plans for the Indian leader to visit Moscow. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later reiterated that no meeting was planned, while discussions for a 2023 bilateral summit would take place in due course.
Putin did not travel to the BRICS summit hosted by South Africa in Johannesburg in August, or to the G20 summit held in New Delhi in September. At both events, Russia was represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.