India, China, Russia call for fairer world order

By Alistair Scrutton
Reuters
Wednesday, February 14, 2007; 8:19 AM

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The foreign ministers of India, China and Russia called on Wednesday for a more balanced world order, while insisting their day-long summit was not ganging up on any superpower, such as the United States.

India's Pranab Mukherjee, Russia's Sergei Lavrov and China's Li Zhaoxing discussed economic ties at a time when the Asian giants are seeking more energy supplies and Moscow sits on huge oil and gas reserves.

"They expressed their conviction that democratisdemocratizationation of international relations is the key to building an increasingly multi-polar world order," the summit's joint communiqu¿ said.

But the communiqu¿ emphasized that "trilateral cooperation was not directed against the interests of any other country."

Few concrete economic deals came from a summit aimed at smoothing the path for future trade agreements.

"The economies of all three countries are growing fast," Li told a news conference at the end of the meeting.

"I believe there is great complementarity and potential for tripartite cooperation ... We discussed how to widen and deepen cooperation in fields like energy, transport, economy and trade."

Analysts said economic necessities would likely override pending security concerns between India and China, at least at this summit. China's close relationship with India's arch-rival Pakistan and its military power have long worried New Delhi.

The Indian foreign ministry said on Tuesday a "hotline" had been set up between the two countries to speed up diplomatic communications.

The summit came after Russian President Vladimir Putin's high profile visit to India last month, when Russia signed deals to help India construct nuclear power stations.

India is also buying more Russian weapons, such as combat jets. China and India account for most of Russia's annual arms sales of around $6 billion.

The United States has also been cementing closer ties with India, reaching a controversial deal to allow India to buy U.S. nuclear reactors and fuel for the first time in 30 years.

Putin recently made headlines by accusing the United States of fuelling a new arms race. He says U.S. domination in the post-Cold War world order needs to take account of new centers of powers like China, India and Russia.

"The whole world recognizes that problems and conflicts must be solved by common efforts," Lavrov said, adding that the three foreign ministers discussed the Iran nuclear standoff, Iraq and West Asia.

Experts said the three summit countries, each with their own bilateral relations with Washington, were not seeking any strategic, anti-U.S. partnership.

"Of all the three, Russia may have some concept of ganging up on the United States.

But this meeting is really not about any strategic partnership between the three," said C. Raja Mohan, strategic affairs editor of the Indian Express newspaper.

"India wants a close relationship with Washington."

(Additional reporting by Kamil Zaheer)