In a visit reminiscent of former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s 1955 ground-breaking trip, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to visit Russia and five Central Asian states in July this year.
The visit, to Turkmenistan,Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyztan, and Kazakhstan is likely to take place in the first two weeks of July, timed around the BRICS and SCO summits in the Russian city of Ufa from July 9 to 10, sources confirmed to The Hindu .
The Prime Minister is expected to break up the tour of the “Stans”, as the former Soviet republics in central Asia are known, visiting two countries before his visit to Ufa, and the three remaining ones after.
Energy on agenda Diplomatic sources said the Prime Minister’s visit to the 5 states, which was last done by PM Nehru in June 1955, will have a three-fold focus: energy, exports, and as a counterpoint to China’s inroads in the region. Between them, the five states control the most energy-diverse and oil-rich parts of the world, with Kazakhstan a major oil producer, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan with the biggest natural gas reserves, and Tajikistan and Kyrgyztan understood to have considerable untapped reserves.
While Nehru covered the states during a visit to Russia by train in about 10 days, Mr. Modi is expected to spend about three days traversing through these areas. His visit will come after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2013 visit to all five “Stans” when he announced billions of dollars in loans to the countries to build energy and transport infrastructure, as well as a year after Russia and China announced a $400 billion gas pipeline that would cover all the central Asian countries in between.
Fresh from his visit to China, Mr. Modi will also be looking to work in parallel to China’s Silk Route initiative, which India is yet to sign on to. When asked at a press conference in Beijing, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar said that the Silk Road Economic Belt, or ‘one belt one road’ initiative is yet to be discussed substantively between India and China.
“It is a national initiative of a country. If any country wants other countries to discuss and collaborate on national initiatives, it is for the country which takes the initiative to discuss that initiative,” he added.
In that sense, Mr. Modi’s visit will be important because it will cover much of the area China encompasses in its plans. “If you see his trajectory, from China, to Mongolia, to Central Asia, the PM’s plans are quite close to that of the SREB,” an official involved in the planning said.
The visit to Ufa for the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) and BRICS summits will be no less important. The process to elevate India and Pakistan from ‘observers’ to ‘members’ is also expected to get under way during the current SCO summit, and it is the first time the Indian PM will attend the grouping of Russia, China, and four of the ‘Stans’ (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyztan). Not only that, the visit could offer a chance for a meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. According to officials in Islamabad, a decision on Mr. Sharif’s attendance at the SCO summit would be taken in the next week.
Surge in goodwill Finally, Mr. Modi will have an extended meeting with President Putin on plans to further India-Russia ties, that have seen a surge in goodwill after the government sent President Pranab Mukherjee to attend the 70th commemoration of world war II in Moscow, despite a boycott from western countries. Last week, President Putin telephoned Mr. Modi to thank him for the “high-level representation”, said a Kremlin statement, adding that “Mr. Putin and Mr. Modi discussed steps to further develop the privileged strategic partnership between Russia and India, as well as several large joint trade and economic projects.”
