India, China and Russia for multi-polar world

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New Delhi, Feb 14: Deciding to give a push to their trilateral forum, India, Russia and China on Wednesday underlined the need for a multi-polar world through “democratisation” of international relations, with the UN having the central role as an “effective and transparent” body.

Foreign ministers of the three countries, who held wide-ranging tripartite talks here, opposed ‘confrontation’ as a mechanism to govern approaches to regional and global affairs, including in the context of Iran’s nuclear issue, apparently hinting at the US.

External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee, Russian minister Sergei Lavrov and Chinese minister Li Zhaoxing deliberated on issues like Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea and Middle East.

“The ministers discussed the political, security and econmic aspects of the current global scenario, besides exchanging views on how international relations are being presently conducted,” a joint communique issued after the talks said.

The three sides “expressed their conviction that democratisation of international relations is the key to building an increasingly multi-polar world order that would be based on principles of equality of nations—big or small, respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries, international law and mutual respect.”

Addressing a joint press conference, Mukherjee said the three leaders agreed that “cooperation rather than confrontation should govern the approaches” to regional and global affairs.

“We also agreed on the importance of the UN and that there was a need to make it more effective so that it reflects contemporary global realities,” he said.

The demand for multilateralism by the three nations assumes significance considering that Russian President Vladimir Putin recently accused the US of undertaking unilateral decisions on world affairs.

“We have to work harder to facilitate democratisation of international order to make it responsible even further to the principles of multilateralism,” Li said.