New Delhi: After a “very candid and direct conversation” at the virtual meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Joe Biden on Monday and the in-person India-US 2+2 talks at the foreign and defence ministerial level in Washington which followed it, US secretary of state Antony J. Blinken said his country “is willing to be a partner of choice with India across virtually every realm — commerce, technology, education and security,” but also urged India “to avoid major new transactions for Russian weapons systems” and also “not to increase its purchases of Russian energy”.
The 2+2 talks took place with Mr Blinken and defence secretary Lloyd J. Austin representing the American side and external affairs minister S. Jaishankar and defence minister Rajnath Singh representing India.
Briefing about the talks between the two countries, Mr Blinken made it clear that “India has to make its own decisions about how it approaches this (Russia) challenge,” adding no decision had yet been made on either imposing sanctions on India or granting any waiver to it for its purchase of S-400 missiles from Russia.
