Russia is now worried that India might be delaying the MoU to get Moscow to work more proactively for its NSG membership.Taken aback by this Indian reluctance to seal the MoU, Russia's deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin took up the issue with PM Narendra Modi in their meeting last week, a top official source confirmed to TOI. Rogozin, however, left without any assurance from India on signing the MoU.The meeting was held to prepare the groundwork for Modi's summit with President Vladimir Putin early next month. Moscow is worried that without the MoU, there will be no real takeaway from the summit which is barely two weeks away .India's message, conveyed to Moscow through official channels, is said to have been quite explicit in nature. It has been learnt by TOI that despite repeated exhorta tions for over six months, Russia has been unable to convince India to sign the MoU which was originally meant to have been signed on the sidelines of the Brics summit in Goa last year. However, the Russians seem to believe that India has only further complicated its case by inviting Dalai Lama to Arunachal Pradesh and that this will only see China further hardening its position.Russia's interests now converge sharply with China's as evident also from the way it has endorsed Beijing's ambitious OBOR project.

Source: Economic Times May 17, 2017 05:37 UTC