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13-04-2023
(Courtesy Al-Jazeera)
NEW DELHI: India says Ukraine has asked for more medicines and medical equipment and has invited Indian companies to help rebuild the country.
Ukraine made its request during a four-day visit to India by First Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Emine Dzhaparova, which ended on Wednesday, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.
Dzhaparova’s visit was the first by a high-ranking official from Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion of her country in February last year.
Dzhaparova held talks with India’s junior foreign minister, Meenakshi Lekhi, and handed over a letter from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the ministry said.
The statement gave no details about what the letter said.
“Rebuilding infrastructure in Ukraine could be an opportunity for Indian companies,” the ministry cited Dzhaparova as saying.
India has sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the war, including drugs and medical equipment. India also plans to supply school buses to Ukraine, the Indian ministry said.
Dzhaparova proposed that rebuilding infrastructure in Ukraine could be an opportunity for Indian companies, its statement said.
India “can play a bigger and greater role” and Ukraine would “welcome any effort that is directed at resolving the war”, she said in a speech on Tuesday at the Indian Council of World Affairs, a think tank in New Delhi.
The two countries agreed to hold their next round of foreign ministry consultations in Kyiv on a mutually convenient date, the Indian foreign ministry said.
India has not been as critical of its old ally Russia over its invasion of Ukraine as some other countries, and it has increased its purchases of discounted Russian oil while maintaining high-level contacts with Moscow.
India has sought a diplomatic solution to the conflict while Modi, in comments seen as mildly critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, told him in September that now was “not an era of war”.
