Indian ambassador lauds growing multifaceted ties with Armenia

Indian ambassador lauds growing multifaceted ties with Armenia

Ambassador of India to Armenia Nilakshi Saha Sinha has lauded the effective cooperation between Armenia and India in various sectors, noting that the multifaceted partnership has been growing, especially over the past few years.

“I think the partnership between India and Armenia is multifaceted,” the ambassador said at a press briefing.

“And I think in all the areas that we look at, whether it's education, culture, health, defense, politically, economically, we are cooperating exceedingly well. And I think the relations have been on an upswing for the last four, five years. And we are very happy to see further consolidation of these relations.”

Asked about defense cooperation, Ambassador Nilakshi Saha Sinha highlighted that the partnership encompasses both military-technical cooperation and capacity building. “And I think we are progressing very well on all those fronts,” she added.

The Indian ambassador also spoke about other issues.

Asked about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz amid the war in the Middle East, the impact of the resulting situation on India's economy, and how New Delhi is diversifying trade routes, the ambassador emphasized that India “uses challenges as opportunities.”

“The government of India has gone through various crises, shocks in the last few years. We had the pandemic in 2020, and with the crisis in West Asia, definitely we were sourcing a major part of our hydrocarbons from the Gulf, the GCC countries. And this war definitely had an impact. But I think what we have done in India is to use challenges as opportunities. And every time we have done that. So, India has a very comfortable strategic reserve when it comes to crude oil. So, we had around 60 plus days of crude oil reserves. There was no shortage in India as far as petrol at the pump. But obviously for some time the government held the prices.

But as the war raged on, the prices at the petrol pump increased for both petrol and diesel. Where we did face a problem was our LPG, the liquefied petroleum gas and the LNG. Because a major part, I think more than almost 70 percent of LNG and LPG were being sourced from Qatar.

And because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, India had to diversify very quickly. And today a lot of our LPG, LNG is coming from the US, almost 45 percent,” she said, adding that India now has many more countries from which it imports oil.

“And of course the petroleum gas, that is LPG and LNG. And we have already started work on having strategic reserves of LNG and LPG. So that when there is a next crisis, we will be ready for that. So every challenge, every problem is used as an opportunity to course correct and to be prepared for the next crisis,” the ambassador added.