Washington: US diplomat Donald Lu has stated that the Biden administration is urging India to take a clear stand on the Russia-Ukraine Crisis. He further noted that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is on the ‘front line of the battle’ and that the US President Joe Biden and the other senior officials in the state department have been determined towards conducting serious high-level dialogues with their counterparts in India over Ukraine.
“India has focused on two things when trying to explain its position, one that it continues to want to leave on the table the possibility of a diplomatic resolution of this conflict. The second thing that they emphasize is India has 18,000 students still in Ukraine, and they are trying to work with both the Governments of Ukraine and Russia to safeguard those,” the top US diplomat stated.
From Republicans and Democrats, India has received criticism from the US lawmakers, at a hearing about the ‘US relations with India’, for being one among 35 nations that abstained from a UN vote to rebuke Russia’s invasion.
Responding to the criticism made by the lawmakers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Lu said, “Let me say that all of us have been working to urge India to take a clear position, a position opposed to Russia’s actions.”
“The State Department continues to engage India closely to underscore the importance of a collective response and condemning Russia’s invasion,” he added.
“So we’re making small steps and assure you we are on this and working every day to make sure that we are trying to close the gap between where we are and where our Indian partners are,” Lu informed the Senate Foreign Relations subpanel.
Even though India has not taken a clear stance, the US says that it can see evolution in India’s public position.
“So you may have seen yesterday, the Indian government said it would send an airlift of humanitarian supplies from India to Ukraine. That’s important. That’s a request that’s coming from Ukraine’s leadership. Second, it said in a UN session that it called for all states to abide by the UN Charter to respect the sovereignty and territory, and the territorial integrity of other states. That wasn’t criticism of Russia, but a very clear reference to Russia’s violation of the UN Charter and violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty,” Lu explained.
India has again abstained from voting at the United Nations General Assembly, where a resolution demanding that Russia stop military operations in Ukraine was passed with 141 votes in favor. There were 35 abstentions and five votes against it.
Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzia has said that no strikes are being carried out by Moscow on the civilians and civilian facilities.
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