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It is not in India's interest to "accelerate or increase" imports of Russian energy and other commodities, the White House said on Monday and further offered to work with the country to help reduce its reliance on Moscow.
Regarding the visit of top Indian-American US advisor Daleep Singh to New Delhi last week, Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary, told the reporters that he explained both the mechanisms of the American sanctions and reiterated that any country or entity should be abiding by those.
Psaki added that reporting energy payments by India are not sanctioned and New Delhi’s imports of Russian energy represent only one to two per cent of its total energy imports.
US Deputy National Security Adviser Daleep Singh played a key role in designing American sanctions against Russia. He was in New Delhi last week in the backdrop of increasing disquiet among Western powers over India not criticising Russia over its attack on Ukraine.
Regarding the visit, Psaki said that "certainly our expectation and our public and private message is — will continue to be that every country should abide by the sanctions that we have announced and that we are implementing around the world."
She said that "energy payments are not sanctioned; that's a decision made by each individual country. And we’ve been very clear that each country is going to make their own choices, even as we have made the decision and other countries have made the decision to ban energy imports."
"What Daleep did make clear to his counterparts during this visit was that we don’t believe it’s in India’s interest to accelerate or increase imports of Russian energy and other commodities," Psaki said.
"Right now, just to give everybody the full scope of it, India’s imports of Russian energy represent only 1 to 2 per cent of their total energy imports," she added.
(With inputs from agecies)
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