When Jaishankar was asked if the US was okay with India buying Russian oil, he couldn’t hold back…
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Your question, do we have multiple options, answer is yes.
00:05Is that a problem?
00:07Why should it be a problem?
00:08If I'm smart enough to have multiple options,
00:10you should be admiring me.
00:12You know, you shouldn't be criticizing.
00:13Now, is that a problem for other people?
00:19I don't think so.
00:20I don't think so, certainly in this case, and in that case.
00:23So, I don't want you to even inadvertently
00:28give the impression that we are purely
00:31and unsentimentally transactional, we are not.
00:35You know, we get along with people, we believe in things,
00:38we share things, we agree on something.
00:57India has more of a multiple choice mindset,
01:06would that be right?
01:10From non-alignment to, I think you may have called it,
01:13or somebody else called it, all alignment.
01:16So, you can pick and choose alliances,
01:19but you can also pick and choose topics.
01:21On Russia, for example, you still buy Russian oil.
01:27Is that okay with your counterpart from the U.S.?
01:32Everything is, your relationship is fine,
01:35you can do whatever you want, whenever you want?
01:37First of all,
01:38I mean, you're sitting next to each other.
01:40No, no, first of all, delighted to be here,
01:44and I couldn't find a better set of people
01:46to be with on the stage.
01:49So, thank you for whoever put us all together.
01:52Your question, do we have multiple options, answer is yes.
01:57Is that a problem?
01:58Why should it be a problem?
01:59If I'm smart enough to have multiple options,
02:02you should be admiring me, you shouldn't be criticizing.
02:05Now, is that a problem for other people?
02:10I don't think so.
02:11I don't think so, certainly in this case, and in that case,
02:15because, look, we try to explain what are the different
02:20pulls and pressures which countries have,
02:23and it's very hard to have a unidirectional
02:27dimensional relationship.
02:30Now, again, different countries and different relationships
02:33have different histories.
02:36If I were to look, say, between the US and Germany,
02:39it is rooted, you know, there's an alliance nature to it,
02:44there's a certain history on which
02:46that relationship is grounded.
02:49In our case, it's very different.
02:51So, I don't want you to, even inadvertently,
02:57give the impression that we are purely unsentimentally
03:02transactional, we are not.
03:04We get along with people, we believe in things,
03:07we share things, we agree on some things,
03:09but, you know, there are times when you're located
03:15in different places, have different levels of development,
03:18different experiences, all of that gets into it.
03:23So, life is complicated, life is differentiated,
03:27and I think it's very important today
03:30not to reduce the entire complexity of our world
03:35into very sweeping propositions.
03:37I think that era is today behind us.
03:41So, I agree very much with what Tony said,
03:43which is good partners provide choices.
03:48Smart partners take some of those choices.
03:52But, sometimes, there will be choices on which you say,
03:55you know, I think I'll pass up on that one.