India: During his visit to Vienna, Austria, Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs of India, replied to Austria Journalist in response to the question related to buying oil from Russia and whether the nation is India’s most important supplier of weapons.
At the start of the discussion, the journalist raised the question that in 2022 about 18,000 people from India have applied for political asylum in Austria for several months. There was no other nation with more Asylum seekers here, “How would you explain that?”
Jaishankar responded, he even doesn’t know about the numbers, but according to his senses, when it comes to irregular migration, sometimes, these are done by syndicates and gangs, and no one can ever know where they end up with.
“I think what is important is not what happened in the past because, we have the commitment to ensure that moment in mobility is legal. We would like a regime for that. It is good for the global workplace. It is good for the Australian economy.” That is one of the outcomes of his visit to Vienna.
Along with this, the Australian anchor shared another question that with the MEA, “Is it about to still making sure that Europe is not freezing to death in the winter or just increasing your interest by five times?”
Jaishankar said, “No,” Europe has managed to reduce its imports while doing it in a manner comfortable for Europe. How people that would have been a little bit of a managed. “Now, if at 60,000 Euros or whatever your per capita,” He told the report that he cares about his population, ” I have a population of two thousand dollars. I also need energy. I’m not in a position to pay high prices; oil prices have doubled.”
Moreover, he further stated, what Europe is doing, they are moving into the Middle East and diverting production from the Middle East into Europe and increasing prices.
So the European actions are putting pressure on the global oil markets as well as their imports. So he thinks it is something European political leadership would understandably like to soften the effects on their population. Jaishankar believes it is a privilege that they should extend to other political leaders as well.
Also, Jaishanker was asked whether he was reluctant to add Moscow because Russia is India’s most significant supplier of weapons as well as military equipment and whether he was reluctant to criticize Moscow.
He stated, no, he doesn’t. India has a relationship with Moscow. India had a long-term relationship with the nation Moscow. Minister of External Affairs asserted, “I think it is important to look at the history of the relationship. It was a relationship built in a period when Western democracies utilized to arm a military dictatorship called Pakistan and deny India defensive weapons.”
“So we are talking about principles. Let’s talk a little bit of history out here. So how did the Indian exposure to Russia and, previously, to the Soviet Union get built up? Because the Western democracies, for whatever reason, decided that their natural partner in our part of the world was a military dictatorship,” added Jaishankar in response to a question asked by the anchor.
Furthermore, Jaishankar was asked whether he believed that India was an ally of Russia, and in response to that, he mentioned in the statement, “Oh, I think India doesn’t. We are an independent nation. We don’t define ourselves or perceive ourselves in alliance terms. That is very much western terminology. It’s not something. It’s not a term that we use.”
