Russia, India oppose bid to politicize OPCW's work: Lavrov

Sochi (Russia)  :  Moscow and New Delhi will strongly oppose attempts to politicize the work of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday following talks between President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"There was a discussion about various areas of our specific cooperation at the regional and global level," Lavrov said, adding that Russia and India had confirmed they "will strongly oppose attempts to politicize the work of the OPCW," Lavrov was cited as saying by TASS news agency.

The Russian top diplomat pointed out that "we have seen" such attempts "recently". 

Lavrov said the talks between Putin and Modi were "very intense". 

"I am confident that the ongoing informal contacts between the leaders of Russia and India will be useful and will help define the further guidelines for our development and strategic partnership." 

During his meeting with Modi, Putin said that Russia and India maintained a high strategic level of partnership with close cooperation between the two countries' Defence Ministries.

"Our Defence Ministries maintain very close contacts and cooperation. It speaks about a very high strategic level of our partnership." 

The Russian leader also hailed joint activities of the two countries in the area of foreign politics, in particular within the UN, BRICS (an association of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Modi's nine-hour tour came after National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale visited Moscow earlier in May to discuss a way out of the US sanctions on Russian firms.

Putin is also expected to visit India later this year for the annual bilateral summit.