With the months-long Ukraine conflict raging on, India on Saturday told the United Nations General Assembly that it is on the side of peace and on the side that calls for dialogue and diplomacy as the only way out.
"As the Ukraine conflict continues to rage, we are often asked whose side we are on. And our answer, each time, is straight and honest,” External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in his address to the high-level UN General Assembly session in New York.
He underlined that it is in the collective interest of the international community to work constructively, both within the United Nations and outside, in finding an early resolution to this conflict.
Delivering the national statement, he said in this conflict India is on the side of peace and will remain firmly there.
"We are on the side that respects the UN Charter and its founding principles. We are on the side that calls for dialogue and diplomacy as the only way out,” he said.
“We are on the side of those struggling to make ends meet, even as they stare at escalating costs of food, fuel and fertilizers,” the minister said.
At various UN platforms like the UN Security Council and the General Assembly, India has mostly abstained on resolutions on the Ukraine conflict.
Jaishankar voiced concern over the sharp deterioration in the international landscape.
"The world is already struggling with challenges of post-pandemic economic recovery. The debt situation of the developing (countries) is precarious.
"To this, is now added the rising costs and shrinking availability of fuel, food and fertilizers. These, along with trade disruptions and diversions, are among the many consequences of the Ukraine conflict.”
He added that the repercussions of the ongoing Ukraine conflict have further heightened economic stresses, especially on food and energy.
India has been strongly reiterating the need for an immediate cessation of all hostilities and a return to dialogue and diplomacy.
India has not yet condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and it has been maintaining that the crisis must be resolved through diplomacy and dialogue.
Putin on Wednesday announced a “partial mobilisation” of some 300,000 reservists with immediate effect in the wake of setbacks suffered by Russia in its raging conflict with Ukraine, saying it was necessary as Moscow is fighting the “entire military machine of the collective West.”
Since early September, Ukraine forces have swiftly recaptured large swaths of land in Ukraine's Kharkiv region that Russian troops took over in early weeks of the war which began on February 24.
