Jaishankar meets Russian NSA, discusses Afghan situation

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar meets Russian Secretary of Security Council Nikolai Patrushev
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar meets Russian Secretary of Security Council Nikolai Patrushev

New Delhi [India], September 8 (ANI): External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday met with visiting Russian Secretary of Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, and discussed a number of international and regional problems, including the situation in Afghanistan.

Jaishankar termed the discussion with Patrushev "very useful". Patrushev is in India for a two-day visit.

"Glad to meet Secretary of Security Council of Russia, Nikolai Patrushev. Very useful discussions on Afghanistan," he tweeted.

According to the Russian embassy here, Jaishankar and Patrushev had a discussion on a wide range of issues of the Russian-Indian bilateral cooperation.

"An exchange of views took place on a number of international and regional problems, including the situation in Afghanistan," the embassy said.

Earlier in the day, Patrushev and his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval had a high-level meeting on the situation in Afghanistan.

During the meeting, the two sides agreed to coordinate their approaches in multilateral formats regarding the Afghan settlement, informed Russian Embassy here.

Doval and Patrushev discussed Moscow and New Delhi joint efforts aimed at creating conditions for launching a peaceful settlement process on the basis of an intra-Afghan dialogue.

Afghanistan has plunged into crisis after the Taliban seized control of the war-ravaged country.

The Tuesday meeting was the first detailed and extensive review of the Afghanistan situation involving the Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Defence and security agencies with Russia after falling of Kabul to the Taliban, said the sources.

(ANI)