'I am smart to have options': Jaishankar's witty reply to Russia question | Watch

On the sidelines of the Munich conference on February 17, sharing the stage with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar was quick to respond when questioned about India buying oil from Russia.

Asked about India's foreign policy changing from "non-alignment to all alignment", Jaishankar replied, “Is that a problem, why should that be a problem? If I am smart enough to have multiple options, you should be admiring me. Is that a problem for others? I don't think so, suddenly in this case. We try to explain what are the different pulls and pressures that countries have. it's very hard to have that unidimensional relationship.”

"I do not want you, even inadvertently, to give the impression that we are purely and unsentimentally transactional. We are not. We get along with people, we believe in things, we share things, ...but there are times when you are located in different places, different levels of development, different experiences, all of that gets into it," Jaishankar added.

“So life is complicated, life is differentiated… Good partners provide choices, smart partners take some of those choices,” said Jaishankar.

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