Jaishankar

Tokyo, July 30 (HS). Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's likely visit to Ukraine next month, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Monday that India will further increase contacts with Ukraine and Russia in the near future as such contact between countries talking to both sides is extremely important to resolve the conflict between them.

Jaishankar said that India believes that the solution to the conflict will not come from the battlefield.

“We believe that we should be more active in Russia and Ukraine,” the foreign minister said during a discussion session at the National Press Club of Japan. Jaishankar is on a three-day visit to Japan.

Responding to a question on reports of Modi's possible visit to Kyiv next month, Jaishankar said, “I can expect that there will be more contacts between us and Ukraine and also between us and Russia.” Refusing to give any specific answer, the foreign minister said, “We, like any government, make our position clear through the right channels at the right time.”

Jaishankar said that more efforts are needed to end the Ukraine-Russia conflict. He said, our feeling today is that more work needs to be done and we should not accept the current state of the conflict continuing and say 'let it run its course and we should wait for events in other parts of the world to find some kind of solution'.

Jaishankar said that given the gravity of the situation, it is important for countries to be in touch with both Russia and Ukraine, as many countries are not actually talking to both sides.

Jaishankar said India believes it is important that everyone does everything they can so that some improvement takes place and things move off the battlefield and to the negotiating table.