India dismisses reports about differences with Russia on Ukraine as ‘factually incorrect’

Vienna: India on Wednesday dismissed as “factually incorrect” reports about differences with Russia on the issue of Ukraine that apparently led to scrapping of a larger delegation-level meeting during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Moscow.

“To the best of my knowledge, there are no cancellations of any particular programming element during the Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow,” Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said at a media briefing here.

He was responding to a question about some friction in Moscow that apparently led to scrapping of one session.

“I actually find it surprising but there are no facts to this factually incorrect, quite misleading (report). In fact, the Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow was extremely successful,” he said.

In fact, the discussions between Prime Minister Modi and President Putin far exceeded the time that was actually allocated by the two sides. “And there was absolutely no cancellation of any kind of programme,” he added.

Earlier, Russia’s state-run TASS news agency quoted Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that Prime Minister Modi and President Putin decided to keep things intimate at their Tuesday meeting in Moscow, covering all topics productively without the need for a larger breakout session.

When asked why the talks between the two leaders were not followed by a meeting with larger delegations, Peskov explained this was not because of some problems but rather that the conversation between Putin and Modi that lasted more than three hours (and) was attended by officials in charge of “almost all major spheres of [bilateral] cooperation.”