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In phone call with PM Modi, Putin conveys inability to attend G20 meet in Delhi
Both the leaders reviewed progress on number of issues of bilateral cooperation and exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual concern.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday spoke to Russian president Vladimir Putin over phone.
Both the leaders reviewed progress on number of issues of bilateral cooperation and exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual concern, including the recently concluded BRICS Summit in Johannesburg, the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement.
Putin conveyed his inability to attend the G20 Summit in New Delhi on 9-10 September 2023 and informed that Russia would be represented by
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.
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While expressing an understanding for Russia’s decision, PM Modi thanked Putin for Russia’s consistent support to all initiatives under India’s G20 Presidency.
"Topical issues of Russian-Indian relations, which are progressively developing in the spirit of a particularly privileged strategic partnership, were considered (in the call)", Reuters quoted a statement by Kremlin.
The G20 summit will be held in New Delhi on September 9 and 10. On August 25, Kremlin had announced that Putin will not personally attend the meeting of the G20 leaders in the national capital.
“No, the President has no such plans”, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov had said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Putin had attended the recently concluded BRICS summit in South Africa's Johannesburg, with the Russian leader attending the event remotely.
Putin had said that Russia wanted to end a war he said had been "unleashed by the West and its satellites" in Ukraine. “The West’s attempts to punish and isolate Russia financially for sending troops into Ukraine are an “illegitimate sanctions practice and illegal freezing of assets of sovereign states, which essentially amounts to them trampling upon all the basic norms and rules of free trade”, he was quoted by AFP as saying.
