Politics

17:07, 15.05.2008 | Russia

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov holds talks with his Indian and Chinese counterparts in Yekaterinburg on Thursday. This will be the seventh tripartite ministerial meeting.

The Russian Foreign Ministry reported that the sides “will examine progress in implementing the understandings on strengthening practical potential of the tripartite format, which were achieved at the previous meeting of the three foreign ministers in Harbin in 2007”. “The ministers will exchange opinions on pressing international and regional questions of mutual interest.”

“It is planned to give special attention to discussion of urgent trends in the global economy and finance, energy security and energy efficiency,” the Foreign Ministry added.

The first tripartite meetings at the level of foreign ministers were held during the sessions of the UN General Assembly in New York in 2003-2004, then in Alma-Ata at a meeting of foreign ministers of member countries of the Meeting on Cooperation and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia in October 2004.

The meeting of the three foreign ministers passed as an independent event in Vladivostok in June 2005. Foreign ministers of India, China and Russia Natwar Singh, Li Zhaoxing and Sergei Lavrov held another tripartite meeting in New York the same year.

In 2006, the tripartite contacts reached a higher level: the first top-level tripartite meeting was held in St. Petersburg on July 17 at the G-8 summit. In February 2007, Lavrov and his Indian and Chinese counterparts Pranab Mukerjee and Li Zhaoxing met in New Delhi.

- Itar-Taas