NEW DELHI: India and Russia will have another opportunity to review bilateral ties and discuss regional and global issues with NSA Ajit Doval likely to host his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev on March 29.

This will be the first high-level contact between the 2 countries after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and Patrushev is expected to allay concerns in India that deepening Moscow-Beijing ties could have a deleterious effect on Russia’s relationship with India.

Doval had last met Patrushev in February this year when he travelled to Moscow for a security meeting on Afghanistan. The NSA had then then also called on Putin and it was agreed that the 2 countries would further work towards implementing the India-Russia Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership.

There have been worrying reports though that Russian defence deliveries - related to a major project - to India have been delayed because of the Ukraine war. Without naming the S-400 air defence missile system, which India is acquiring from Moscow, a Parliamentary committee report on defence has said that a ``major delivery’’ won’t take place this year and that the Russians had given this in writing.

Doval will meet Patrushev on the margins of the SCO meeting of the national security advisers. The NSA is expected to use the meeting to reiterate India’s position on Afghanistan that no country be allowed to use Afghan territory for terrorism and that Afghanistan needs an inclusive and representative dispensation in the larger interests of its society.

The SCO NSA meeting is also likely to see participation by Pakistan, even if only virtual. Significantly, while Islamabad is yet to decide whether its defence minister will participate in the SCO defence ministries’ meeting here late next month, members of its armed forces are visiting India for SCO-mandated defence engagements.

Pakistan military officials visited India for a defence expert group meeting on March 23 and another military delegation is likely to participate in an upcoming meeting of SCO defence officials in the next few weeks, and just ahead of the meeting of the defence ministers.

``These expert group meetings on defence are important for long-term SCO planning and engagement and so most member-states, including Pakistan, would like to participate in-person,’’ said a source. If Pakistan defence minister Khwaja Asif does visit India, it will be the first visit at the level by either side since then Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj travelled to Pakistan for the Heart of Asia conference in 2015.