PRESS RELEASE
Preparations Afoot for the Russia-India-China (RIC) Trilateral Meeting
Dec. 7, 2017 (EIRNS)—The 15th round of RIC foreign ministers’ meeting is scheduled to take place in New Delhi on Dec. 11. In addition to the RIC meeting, a number of bilateral meetings will take place as well, India’s Economic Times reported. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will be arriving over the Dec. 9-10 weekend. Meanwhile, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has arrived on Dec. 6. The significance of the RIC lies in the fact that unlike some of the other trilaterals and quadrilaterals, there is a joint communiqué and not separate statements by the three countries, the Economic Times reported.
Lavrov will review bilateral ties with his Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj at their separate meetings. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin will be arriving in New Delhi on Dec. 23. In addition, the Economic Times reported "another senior minister from Moscow will be here in January as Delhi pushes its Eurasian agenda through connectivity initiatives INSTC (International North-South Transport Corridor) & Chabahar Port."
China will be represented by Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and his visit for RIC will be followed by Chinese State Councillor Yang Jiechi’s possible trip to Delhi in the third week of December for boundary talks with the Indian National Security Advisor and Special Representative, the Economic Times wrote.
Meanwhile, in an exclusive interview with Geospatial World, the General Deputy Director Vitaly Safonov of Glavcosmos, a Russian state launch service provider and a subsidiary of Roscosmos, said "Geospatial Russia is planning to set up ground base stations in India for receiving communication signals of GLONASS. Similarly, [Indian Space Research Organization] ISRO will be allowed to set up IRNSS (now called NavIC) ground stations in Russia," referring to the countries’ GPS services.
