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Avenues for trilateral cooperation will be explored: Vajpayee

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW DEC. 3. The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, said India, Russia and China would explore "new avenues'' for trilateral cooperation. In the run-up to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin's visit to India, Mr. A.B.Vajpayee, recalled that the Foreign Ministers of Russia, China and India held a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in September.

``They exchanged views on topical international issues. They have agreed to continue contacts in this format, so that new avenues of cooperation can be explored,'' Mr. A.B.Vajpayee said in an interview to the Interfax news agency on the possibility of trilateral cooperation.

The Prime Minister's statement echoed Mr. Putin's reference to the "triangle'' in his interview to The Hindu last week.

``I think that all parties within this triangle are interested in this development (of positive relations between the three nations): We should move step-by-step trying to develop harmonious relations,'' the Russian President said. Analysts attached significance to the fact that Mr. Putin's current tour of Asia has taken him to China and India.

The Russian President's talks in Beijing and Delhi could speed up India's entry into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), to promote trilateral cooperation against terrorism, a Russian

Government news agency said. Mr. Putin may help "launch the process'' by taking a "corresponding oral message from Beijing to Delhi,'' the RIA Novosti said today.

Both Russia and China are founding members of the SCO, which also includes four Central Asian States. Trilateral cooperation between Russia, China and India is seen in Moscow as the core of a future security system for Asia.

``Russia is trying to build in Asia a new system of international relations— a triangle of strategic stability, security and the fight against international terrorism, the three poles of which will be Moscow, Beijing and Delhi,'' said the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Russian Parliament, State Duma. The problem of terrorism, faced by Russia, China and India is drawing the three nations closer together.``The Talib Afghanistan, the terrorist Xinjiang and the Pushtun-populated north of Pakistan could become a powerful conglomerate of subversive formations aimed at the Central Asia along with India and China,'' RIA Novosti said on the "triangle.''

``The looming shapes of Indo-Sino-Russian co-operation for fighting terror in the Central Asia can turn out to be much more important'' (than bilateral differences between the three nations), RIA Novosti said that the triangle will be devoid of any "anti-American implications,'' that were tangible in the Russia-China-India axis idea put forward by the former Russian Prime Minister, Yevgeny Primakov, in Delhi four years ago.

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