India, Russia, China hold trilateral talks (Roundup)

Feb 14, 2007, 12:31 GMT

New Delhi - India, Russia and China agreed that cooperation rather than confrontation should govern approaches to regional and global affairs at a meeting of their foreign ministers in New Delhi Wednesday.

India's Pranab Mukherjee, Russia's Sergei Lavrov and China's Li Zhaoxing discussed a wide range of issues including the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Iranian and North Korean nuclear problems and the Middle East conflict at a meeting that lasted nearly three hours.

'India, Russia and China, as countries with growing international influence, can make (a) substantive contribution to global peace, security and stability,' a joint communique issued after the meeting said.

The leaders also reaffirmed that their trilateral cooperation was not directed against the interests of any other country and was intended to promote peace and harmony, the communique added.

Welcoming the agreement reached at the six-party talks on the Korean nuclear issue in Beijing on Tuesday, Lavrov said at a press briefing following the meeting, 'The world's crises must be resolved through dialogue rather than confrontation.'

The leaders said multilateral diplomacy was the need of the hour and the role of the United Nations had to be strengthened to enable it to deal more effectively with the challenges facing the world today.

'We have to work harder for the democratization of international relations based on multilateralism and diversity,' Li said.

'The three sides also agreed to coordinate action against all factors that feed international terrorism including its financing, illegal drug trafficking and transnational organized crime,' the communique said.

The three ministers discussed cooperation in the economic field with special focus on energy, transport infrastructure, health and high-technology.

It was decided that the three governments would facilitate a trilateral business forum by their respective apex business chambers and a meeting was likely to take place later this year.

Mukherjee said they had agreed to continue interaction in a trilateral format, and the next meeting would be hosted by China.

'We hope to strengthen peace and security in the region and around the world through our interaction,' he said.

It was the second such meeting between the three countries since one held in Vladivostok in 2005, a spokesman for India's Foreign Ministry said.

Two informal meetings have taken place on the sidelines of international gatherings since then.