Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar and his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba held discussions over a “substantial agenda’, from peace efforts to restoring bilateral trade & economic cooperation to earlier levels (before the Russia-Ukraine war), which, the Indian Minister said, gave India the opportunity to hear Ukraine’s perspectives on the situation in its own region.

“Your visit gives us an opportunity, obviously, to understand the situation in your own region, and I look forward to hearing your perspectives on that,” Jaishankar said in his opening remarks at the bilateral with Kuleba in New Delhi.

Peace Formula

Kuleba, who is on a two-day visit to India and co-chaired the Ukrainian-Indian inter-governmental commission review meeting, said in a social media post that the two Ministers had agreed to restore the cooperation between the two countries to the level that existed prior to the full-scale war launched by Russia. The countries would also identify new promising projects to take relations to the next level, he said.

“We paid specific attention to the Peace Formula and next steps on the path of its implementation,” Kuleba tweeted.

On February 24 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine in an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that started in 2014.  The war has continued for over two years now.

Immediate goal

Following the review meeting of the inter-governmental commission, Jaishankar said that the immediate goal was to get trade back to earlier levels. “Perspectives on trade, health, S&T and agriculture cooperation shared today were useful. We agreed to prepare for the 7th IGC meeting later this year,” Jaishankar said in a social media post on X.

Jaishankar pointed out that in recent months, India and Ukraine had interactions at various levels. “I’m glad to see that some of our bilateral mechanisms have also met. I think this has created a certain momentum in our bilateral relationship,” he said.

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