Indo-Pacific a new concept in changing world, says S Jaishankar in Moscow ahead of Narendra Modi's forthcoming visit to Vladivostok

Moscow: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said in Moscow on Tuesday that the changing world had thrown up new concepts and approaches and the Indo-Pacific was one of them. On Tuesday, Jaishankar arrived in Moscow on a two-day visit to Russia during which he will hold talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and finalise the preparations for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s forthcoming visit to the country. This is his first visit to Moscow since assuming office in May. His visit comes days ahead of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok from 4 to 6  September where Modi will be the chief guest. “The changing world has thrown up new concepts and approaches. Discussed one of them – the Indo-Pacific at the Valdai Discussion Club,” Jaishankar said in a tweet. He spoke at the Valdai Discussion Club, a Moscow-based think tank and discussion forum established in 2004, on the topic “India’s perspective on the Indo-Pacific”. [caption id=“attachment_7192851” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of S Jaishankar. AFP[/caption] “40 years to the day I first came to Moscow. The world has changed but India-Russia relations remain steady,” Jaishankar tweeted. The External Affairs Minister also unveiled a statue of Mahatma Gandhi at India’s embassy in Russia. “EAM S Jaishankar unveiled Gandhi statue at the Embassy premises on the occasion of 150th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi,” the embassy said in a tweet. In his address to Maldivian Parliament in June, Modi underscored India’s firm commitment to make the strategic Indo-Pacific an area for shared economic growth, saying it has been “our lifeline, and also the highway for trade and prosperity.” “The Indo-Pacific area is our lifeline and also the highway for trade and prosperity. This is the key to our shared future in every sense,” he said during his first foreign visit since being elected to a second term in May. Modi underlined that at the Shangri-La Dialogue forum in Singapore in June, 2018, he had stressed on working together “to create openness, integration and balance” in the Indo-Pacific region. India, the US and several other world powers have been talking about the need to ensure a free, open and thriving Indo-Pacific in the backdrop of China’s rising military maneuvering in the region. China has been trying to expand its military presence in the Indo-Pacific, which is a bio-geographic region, comprising the Indian Ocean and the western and central Pacific Ocean, including the South China Sea. China claims almost all of the South China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have counter claims over the sea.