Antony will be on a four day visit to Russia. He will co-chair the 13th Meeting of the India – Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC) with his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoigu in Moscow from Monday.

The 12th RIC Foreign Ministers’ trilateral meeting on November 10 “stressed the need to develop an open, inclusive and transparent security architecture in the Asia-Pacific region based upon universally agreed principles of international law,”

The RIC foreign ministers underscored the importance of East Asia Summit (EAS), Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Plus (ADMM-plus), Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) and Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD).

They noted “the rising role of the Asia-Pacific region in international affairs and supported regional integration and cooperation.” The foreign ministers of China and Russia noted India’s growing economic profile and its important role in the global economic growth and its significant economic and trade linkages with Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) members and supported the openness of APEC. India is not yet a member of APEC and SCO.

At the IRIGC-MTC meeting Antony is slated to discuss with Shoigu a broad spectrum of issues related to on-going and proposed defence projects and defence cooperation between the two countries. The two sides will also exchange views on regional and global issues of concern to both the countries.

IRIGC-MTC was established in 2000 with a view to strengthen defence cooperation between the two countries. Since then it has been meeting annually, alternately in India and Russia, at the level of the Defence Ministers of the two countries, to review and discuss matters relating to bilateral defence cooperation between the two countries.

Antony will be accompanied by high level delegations for both the events. The Chief of Naval Staff Admiral DK Joshi and Defence Secretary RK Mathur will be among those present at the commissioning of INS Vikramaditya. The Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and Defence Minister Shoigu will also be there to witness the landmark event.

The Indian Defence Minister’s delegation to the IRIGC-MTC will include Defence Secretary RK Mathur, Secretary, Defence Production GC Pati, DG Acquisition SB Agnihotri and senior officers of the Armed Forces.