Krishna finalises Moscow summit agenda for prime minister

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to sign a number of key bilateral pacts including in the field civil nuclear energy during his visit here next month.

External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, who arrived in Moscow on Thursday, finalised the political agenda of Singh's scheduled talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

At the start of his delegation-level talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in the ornate guest house in down-town Moscow, Krishna said the Prime Minister "was eagerly looking forward to his Moscow visit on December 16".

"We had detailed talks to prepare for the forthcoming summit. A detailed agenda has been finalised for the 12th annual summit," Krishna said later addressing a joint press meet with his Russian host Lavrov.

Lavrov said that a "solid package" of bilateral pacts is being finalised to cover crucial areas including cooperation in civil nuclear energy, pharmaceuticals, interaction of anti-trust bodies of the two nations and education.

Krishna underscored that since Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's India visit in October 2000, when New Delhi and Moscow had launched the tradition of annual summits, the bilateral relations have undergone "qualitative changes".

Defence, space and energy, including civil nuclear, were named by Krishna as the key components of Indo-Russian cooperation.

Krishna is here on a three day visit. On Friday along with Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, he is scheduled to co-chair the 17th session of Indo-Russian Joint Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation, the nodal body for steering mutual interaction in the key non-military areas of bilateral relations.

He said the two countries have set the target of achieving USD 20 billion in bilateral trade by 2015.