Putin remembers India

President Vladimir Putin declared on November 6th that India should have a greater role in the future stability of the area.

The President of the Russian Federation was speaking on the occasion of the visit of Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to Moscow. This main purpose of the visit was to speak about regional stability in the area, about which Vladimir Putin declared “The voice of India should be heard where the question of solving the Afghan question is concerned", because India is a “secure” and “desirable” partner.

Vladimir Putin mentioned India’s experience in fighting terrorism, namely in Kashmir. New Delhi accuses Islamabad of exporting terrorism in the form of the armed Islamic group which fights for an independent Kashmir, a conflict which to date has caused two wars between India and Pakistan. He pointed out that all countries should fight terrorism with the same weight and measure, including Russia, which has its own terrorist problem with the Chechnya insurgents.

He declared that divisions in the international coalition against international terrorism were “unacceptable” and that “There are no good or bad terrorists, our terrorists and theirs”. For this reason, President Putin maintains that the fight against the Chechen terrorists is as important as the fight against Al Qaeda, because fundamentally they are one and the same thing.

Timofei BYELO PRAVDA.Ru