'No' military alliance with China, says Russian Foreign Minister

Dismissing the reports of the possible military alliance between Moscow and Beijing, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday said Moscow is interested in inclusive cooperation and deems military alliance as "counterproductive".

"No, we have fixed that in our bilateral relations adopted at the highest level in the course of the Russia and China Summit where we said that our relations are highest in the history but these relations do not pursue the goal of establishing a military alliance," Lavrov said at a press briefing.

Lavrov further said that he heard about a similar pro-military alliance being promoted in the Middle East and Asia.


"By the way, we have heard speculation about pro-military alliance not only regarding Russia and China relations but we also heard about such alliance allegedly being promoted Middle East-NATO, we also heard about Asian-NATO."

Agreeing with India's position on the issue of the military alliance, the Russian Foreign Minister further said that "Our Indian friends have the same position as us. We believe that this (military alliance) is counterproductive and we are interested in inclusive cooperation that is for something and not against something."

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, along with his Russian counterpart, assessed "positively" the economic cooperation between New Delhi and Moscow as well as noted new opportunities in the Russian far east during a discussion on Tuesday.

Addressing a press briefing with Lavrov, Jaishankar said they both talked about connectivity including the International North-South Transport Corridor and Chennai-Vladivostok Maritime Corridor.

Earlier in the day, Lavrov, who is on a two-day India visit, held delegation-level talks with Jaishankar.