Indian prime minister to visit Russia Wednesday

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on a two-day visit to Russia on Wednesday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the NDTV news channel reported on Tuesday.

The visit aims at further expanding strategic ties with primary focus on nuclear energy, hydrocarbons, defense and trade.

"We expect to sign a number of agreements covering a very broad range of fields. Final touches are being given on some of them," Indian Foreign Secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said.

He said expanding economic ties would be a "very big priority" as the two countries were aiming at enhancing annual bilateral trade to USD 30 billion over the next 10 years from current USD 10 billion.

Besides bilateral issues, Modi and Putin are likely to discuss a number of global issues having political dimensions including the situation in Syria and ways to tackle terrorism.

Source: MENA