The President of United States Donald Trump has repeated his claim that India will not be busing Russian oil despite the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) dismissing that any such call between the US President and Prime Minister Narendra Modi happened at all.
"India is not going to be buying Russian oil anymore, and Hungary is sort of stuck because they have one pipeline... and they're inland — they don't have sea... but India will not be buying oil from Russia," Trump said on Friday speaking at the White House during his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The MEA on Thursday said it has no information on any telephonic conversation between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Donald Trump, following the US President's claim that Modi had told him India would not purchase Russian oil.
"Regarding the comment from the US on energy, we have issued a statement, which you can refer to. As for a telephone conversation, I can say that there has been no discussion between the Prime Minister and President Trump," MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters during a weekly media briefing.
Earlier, Trump had claimed that PM Modi told him that India will stop purchasing oil from Russia.
“I was not happy that India was buying oil, and he assured me today that they will not be buying oil from Russia ... That’s a big step. Now I’ve got to get China do the same thing," Trump told reporters at the White House, referring to PM Modi.
Earlier, Jaiswal said it has been New Delhi's consistent priority to safeguard the interests of the Indian consumer in a volatile energy scenario.
He said India's import policies are guided entirely by national interest, adding India has been looking at expanding energy ties with the US as well.
"Ensuring stable energy prices and secured supplies have been the twin goals of our energy policy," he said.
"This includes broad-basing our energy sourcing and diversifying as appropriate to meet market conditions," Jaiswal added.
India's continuing purchase of petroleum products from Russia notwithstanding Western sanctions have become a major issue that resulted in severe downturn in ties between New Delhi and Washington.
Explaining India's policy on energy procurement, Jaiswal said it is driven by national interest.
"India is a significant importer of oil and gas. It has been our consistent priority to safeguard the interests of the Indian consumer in a volatile energy scenario," he said. "Our import policies are guided entirely by this objective," he said.
In his remarks, Trump suggested that the US wants India to stop procurement of Russian crude only to put financial pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin so that ends the war in Ukraine.
"All we want from President Putin is to stop this, stop killing Ukrainians and stop killing Russians because he's killing a lot of Russians. It is a war he should have won in one week and now it is going into fourth year," he said.
The relations between New Delhi and Washington have been reeling under severe stress after Trump doubled tariffs on Indian goods to a whopping 50 per cent, including a 25 per cent additional duties for India's purchase of Russian crude oil.
India described the US action as "unfair, unjustified and unreasonable" Last week, US Ambassador-designate Sergio Gor met PM Modi in New Delhi.
With inputs from PTI
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