'Have a better deal?': S Jaishankar on buying Russian oil amid Ukraine conflict
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar defended India's purchase of Russian oil, stating it wasn't necessarily cheap and questioning the availability of better deals. He emphasized India's focus on dialogue with both Russia and Ukraine, facilitating conversations without mediating a peace plan. Minister Puri previously highlighted India's role in stabilizing global oil prices by buying Russian oil amidst boycotts.
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"I get oil, yes. It is not necessarily cheap. Do you have a better deal?" Jaishankar said at Doha Forum panel on 'Conflict Resolution in a New Era'.
Jaishankar said that the global focus is shifting towards negotiations rather than the continuation of the Russia-Ukraine war.
"I do think today, the needle is moving more towards the reality of the negotiation than the continuation of the war...We are going to Moscow, talking to President Putin, going to Kyiv, engaging President Zelenskyy, meeting them in other places, trying to see if we can encourage find common threads that can be picked up at some point of time when the circumstances are right to be developed," he said.
"We're not attempting a peace plan, we're not doing a mediation in that sense. We're doing multiple conversations and very transparent about telling each parties that the end of conversation that this is what we'll tell the other party. We think that at this point of time, the most useful...diplomatically," he added.
Last month, Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri also explained India's decision to buy Russian oil at a time when the major countries were boycotting it.
"India did the entire world a favour by buying Russian oil because if we had not done so, the global oil prices would have skyrocketed to $200/barrel. Russian oil was never under any sanctions and there was only a price cap, which Indian entities also followed," he had said.
Jaishankar is on an official visit to Qatar and Bahrain from December 6-9. In Bahrain, he is set to co-chair the 4th India-Bahrain High Joint Commission (HJC) alongside Bahrain's foreign minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani.
