SPEECH BY SHRI K.R.NARAYANAN, PRESIDENT OF INDIA, AT THE BANQUET IN HONOUR OF MR. VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION AND MADAME LYUDMILA PUTINA
NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 3, 2000
Your Excellency
Mr. Vladimir Vladmirovich Putin,
President
of the Russian Federation,Madame
Lyudmila Alexandrovna Putina,Distinguished
Guests, It
gives me great pleasure to extend a very warm welcome to you, Mr. President
on your first ever State Visit to India. We also welcome Madame Lyudmila
Alexandrovna Putina and other distinguished members of your delegation. We
consider your visit as an historic event. It is the first summit level
meeting between our two countries in the first year of the new millennium.
Your visit is significant in that we have today concluded the Declaration
on Strategic Partnership between India and the Russian Federation which
sums up the essence of the relationship between our two countries during
the last half century and in the new century ahead of us. Excellency,
we in India have been watching with admiration the resurgence of Russia
and emergence of a new generation of young leaders in the Russian Federation.
This leadership is embodied in your dynamic personality. We are confident
that under your able stewardship, the Russian Federation will be guided
firmly towards the path of stability and prosperity. We wish you all
success in your endeavours. A strong Russia is not only a cornerstone
of a multipolar world order, it is also pivotal to India’s interests
and its position in the world. For
us, Russia has been a friend in need, and we see in you "the greatest
friend" of India. You had remarked that India and Russia are destined
for a long term partnership. Your visit, Excellency, underlines the
inevitability of this common destiny. Excellency,
the relations between India and Russia go back to centuries.
The Russian
traveller Afanasi Nikitin came to India nearly a quarter of a century
before the Europeans set foot on the Indian soil. The Russian Crown
Prince visited Mumbai in the late 19th century. This year,
we commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the opening of the
Russian Consulate General in Mumbai. The unique resonance in our relations
has been sustained over time not only by our common interests and concerns,
but by the affinities between our two vibrant civilisations.
The
multifaceted relationship between India and the Russian Federation is
substantive in content and extensive in scope. As we consolidate our
co-operation, the main challenge before us is economic development in
order to meet the aspirations and expectations of our people and to
maintain our legitimate role in the world. At the same time, we also
face another major challenge from the forces of international terrorism,
religious extremism, drug trafficking, organised crime and separatism. Terrorism,
Excellency, is the antithesis of democracy and of the basic precept
of peaceful co-existence. Cross border terrorism, sponsored from across
our borders, has taken the lives of thousands of our innocent citizens.
Terrorism financed by drug-trafficking has become a new source of subversion
in the world. The international community should resolve itself to eradicate
this scourge.
India
and the Russian Federation advocate unconditional observance of the
principle of respect for territorial integrity, sovereignty and the
unity of States as the key concept in a pluralistic world. Hence the
supreme importance to us and to the world of the Declaration on Protection
of pluralistic States signed in Moscow by our two countries in June
1994. The United Nations organization is the fulcrum and framework of
the pluralistic world order that we envisage. Hence the necessity and
the urgency of reforming and restructuring the U.N. so that it reflects
the realities of the world to-day. We are grateful to the Russian Federation
for its clear and consistent support to India’s candidature for the
permanent membership of the UN Security Council. Excellency,
both India and the Russian Federation are at a new and dynamic stage
of economic development. The economic reforms process in both countries
has opened up bright prospects for our economies and new and expanding
opportunities for our bilateral co-operation.
We need to reflect on
this and take steps to diversify and enrich our many-sided economic
interaction. Our
defence co-operation constitutes an important element of our bilateral
relations. As early as in 1904, the Indian nationalist leader Lokmanya
Tilak had expressed interest in sending young Indians to Russian schools
for military training. Today, our relations in the defence field have
transcended a mere buyer-seller relationship and have expanded to include
joint research and development, training and service to service contacts. Excellency,
our co-operation in science and technology is more extensive than that
which either of us have with any other country.
I am particularly privileged
to have been associated with the signing of the Integrated Long Term
Programme of Co-operation in Science and Technology in 1987. It gives
me a great satisfaction that today, this programme has been renewed
until 2010. The marriage of Russian science and technology with the
capabilities and potentialities of Indian science and technology could,
in my view, produce spectacular and beneficent results for our two countries
and for the world. Indo-Russian
cultural ties are rooted in the spiritual commonalities of our two civilisations.
Many Russian thinkers, writers and men of letters had been attracted
to India. It is well known that Leo Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi had been
attracted to each other and influenced each other in their ideas as
well as in some of their practical social reform programmes. Excellency,
we have heard of your wish as a student to travel around India. You
are in India to-day in fulfilment of that wish, but as Head of State
of the Russian Federation and as our honoured guest. We do hope that
your visit would enable you to feel the warmth and affection which we
in India have for the great Russian people and for you, personally as
their leader. I wish you, Madame Putina and the distinguished members
of your delegation a memorable and enjoyable stay in India.
Excellency,
the friendship and co-operation between India and Russia is not directed
against any other State or people but is in conformity with our basic
approach of friendship with all while deepening and broadening and consolidating
the friendship that we already have established with countries over
the years. Distinguished
guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, may I now request you all to join me in
raising a toast:
- to the
good health and happiness of President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
and Madame Lyudmila Putina;
- to the
well-being and prosperity of the friendly people of the great Russian
Federation; and
- to the
close and time-tested friendship and the strategic partnership between
India and the Russian Federation.
Thank you
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