Foreign ministers of Russia, India and China start meeting in Moscow

MOSCOW, April 18. /TASS/. The meeting of the foreign ministers of Russia, India and China (RIC) Sergey Lavrov, Sushma Swaraj and Wang Yi has started in Moscow. The Russian Foreign Ministry reported on Monday that the sides will discuss "pressing global and regional issues, strengthening international legal framework of modern world order, collective response to common challenges." Lavrov, Swaraj and Wang will, in particular, discuss the situation in Syria, Iraq, Libya, settlement of political crisis in Ukraine, as well as stepping up "joint efforts in the fight against international terrorism and global drug threat." After the meeting, the foreign ministers are expected to adopt a joint communique. After the Moscow meeting, Russia will pass chairmanship in RIC to India. Work in the RIC format started with trilateral contacts on the sidelines of UN General Assembly sessions in New York in 2003-2005, as well as in Almaty in the framework of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in October 2004. In July 2006, the RIC summit took place on the sidelines of G8 session in St. Petersburg. Separate meetings of RIC foreign ministers have been organized since 2005 in each member-country on a rotating basis. Read more