By IANS
New Delhi : Russian Prime Minister Victor Zubkov comes here next week to kick off a Year of Russia in India and to open the second trade and investment forum, but no bilateral pact on civil nuclear cooperation will be signed during the visit.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will meet Zubkov Feb 12 and discuss with him an entire gamut of bilateral, regional and global issues, including trade, defence ties and civil nuclear cooperation.
The visit, which seeks to bolster business and goodwill among people of the two countries, is expected to clear a controversy around the escalation in the cost of refitted aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, which India agreed to purchase from Russia.
The issue will be discussed between the two sides.
Zubkov will formally inaugurate the Year of Russia in India Feb 12 with a gala concert at the 16th century fort Purana Qila here.
Like other visiting foreign leaders, Zubkov has a date with the Taj Mahal in Agra before he heads back to Moscow Feb 13.
The yearlong Russia festival will include literary soirees (Russia is the guest of honour at the ongoing 18th World Book Fair in New Delhi), art exhibitions and showcase the delights of Russian cinema, cuisine and music to Indians. Next year, it will be India’s turn to showcase its myriad culture in Russia.
The prime minister will open the second India-Russia trade and investment forum, to be attended by over 100 business leaders of both countries, that is designed to smooth out glitches hobbling trade between the two strategic partners.
Top Russian tycoons like Oleg Deripaska, the young billionaire oligarch who controls leading Russian aluminium company, and Vladimir Yevtushenko, head of the Sistema Group, the multi-billion dollar conglomerate, are also likely to accompany the prime minister.
For all the rhetoric about “time-tested ties”, bilateral trade has been slow in picking up (less than $4 billion a year) due to a slew of problems, not least of which is the difficult Russian visa process.
Zubkov’s visit will provide an occasion for the two sides to continue dialogue on some contentious issues. Russia has demanded double the price for refitted aircraft carrier (an additional $1.2 billion) and sought to justify the sharp hike on a change in circumstances, saying New Delhi struck a hard bargain four years ago when the Russian shipyard where the carrier was to be refitted was going through precarious times.
“At a time when the agreement was signed, the position of the shipyard was such that they were ready to sign any deal to prevent it from perishing. The price agreed was very low and unrealistic,” a Russian source said.
“We are not going to give up our obligation. We are going to assess with the Indian side what are India’s specific needs vis-à-vis aircraft carrier,” he added.
The issue of expanding civil nuclear cooperation will be discussed but an agreement on building additional reactors at Kudankulam will not be signed this time round also.
Although Moscow was not very happy when India did not sign it during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit in November last year, it has come to accept New Delhi’s position that it will be unrealistic to go ahead with the pact without a rule change by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
The two countries have frozen the text of bilateral civil nuclear cooperation and are waiting for the right time to sign it.
“It’s a matter of suitable timing. Word by word, it would stay the same,” the source said.
“It might have led to certain friction between India and other countries. And we did not want that to happen,” he said when asked why Russia did not insist on India signing the Kudankulam pact.
Russia is confident that the NSG will effect the rule change necessary to conduct global civil nuclear commerce with India and the India-US nuclear deal will pass muster in Washington regardless of who is in power.