Khurshid will also meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov and discuss issues of bilateral interest.

He will have bilateral meetings with as many as 8 foreign ministers on the same day who have come in advance to participate in the 11th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) of foreign ministers on November 11-12. Among the foreign ministers with whom Kurshid is slated to have bilateral meetings are Titus Corlatean of Romania, Linas Linkevics of Lithuania, Radoslaw Sikorski of Poland, Janos Martonyi of Hungary, George Vella of Malta, Ioannis Kasoulides of Cyprus, Jan Kohout of Czech Republic and Borge Brende of Norway.

This is the third time that the RIC foreign ministers are meeting India. Previously the RIC foreign ministers meeting took place in Delhi and Bengaluru, and this time it is back in Delhi.

As the RIC foreign ministers’ meeting is taking place in the backdrop of the evolving scenario in West Asia and North Africa as well as the upcoming 9th WTO Ministerial Conference in Bali, issues relating to these will figure in the discussion.

Keeping in the view the forthcoming 9th WTO Ministerial in Bali in Indonesia in early December, the foreign ministers will try to evolve a common strategy. Trade facilitation is on the agenda for discussion which include reducing congestion at ports, cutting down delays in transactions. These need technical and financial support.

India’s new food security programme and public stockholding of foodgrains have come under attack from the US and the European Union that gives massive trade-distorting subsidies to their agriculture and also protect their farm sector by raising high bound tariff barriers and by politically motivated sanitary and phytosanitary barriers and technical and non-tariff barriers. India has sought to align with G-77 to ensure smooth sailing of its new food security programme at the WTO.

In addition of course the foreign ministers will also address concerns relating to terrorism, to drug trafficking, to discussions on cooperation in different multilateral fora in which all the three countries are participants, and will also cover other global and regional issues of interest to these three countries.