Russia promises not to supply arms to Pakistan

Russia has promised it will continue co-operation to India and support the latter’s claim to permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council. It also gave a commitment it will never supply arms to Pakistan.

The Russian government position on these three crucial issues of concern to India was conveyed to Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda by President Boris Yeltsin and reiterated by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.

Deve Gowda later said his three-day official visit to Moscow had been successful and that the two countries had agreed to jointly work on India’s economic development programmes.

To a question, Deve Gowda replied India would not be part of military alliance as this country had always been opposed to military blocs. He said India had never accepted military interference in the affairs of any country. He was replying to a question about Yeltsin's remark in his banquet speech in his honour that the time had come to upgrade Indo-Russian relations to the level of "strategic partnership".

However, he said India had traditionally close relations with Russia covering various fields like economic, commercial, cultural and defence cooperation besides science and technology.