(MENAFN- Live Mint) India may soon find itself playing a pivotal role in Ukraine-Russia peace talks as fighting nears the three year mark. Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted on Thursday that he was ready for talks with the other country - a deviation from his earlier refusal to negotiate while Kyiv led an offensive in the Kursk region . The development also comes in the wake of meetings between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Political counterparts in the two warring nations.
According to a Reuters report, a preliminary agreement reached between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the first weeks of the war at talks in Istanbul (which was never implemented) could serve as the basis for talks.
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Putin said his country's primary aim was to capture the Donbas region and insisted that Russia had never refused to entertain peace talks with Ukraine. He also said that Russian troops were "gradually" pushing back Kyiv's forces from the Kursk region after a surprise incursion.
"Are we ready to negotiate with them? We have never refused to do so, but not on the basis of some ephemeral demands, but on the basis of those documents that were agreed and actually initialled in Istanbul," Putin said at a forum in Vladivostok.
According to a Reuters report quoting Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Russia does not see any prerequisites for peace talks with Ukraine at the moment. Moscow had previously said that Kyiv's incursion into the Kursk region made talks impossible.
“The aim of the enemy was to make us worry... and to stop our offensive in key areas, especially in the Donbas, the liberation of which is our main primary objective. Our armed forces have stabilised the situation (in Kursk) and started gradually squeezing (the enemy) out from our territory,” Putin added on Thursday.
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India has repeatedly called for dialogue and diplomacy to ensure a peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict. New Delhi has also voiced its willingness to play an active role 'in the path to peace and progress'.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Ukraine last month - the first Indian PM to step into the European nation - and held talks with Volodymyr Zelensky. He also said that India was ready to play an active role i
“India was never neutral, we have always been on the side of peace,” Modi had said.
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(With inputs from agencies)
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