NEW DELHI: India must remain with all major players in the Middle East amidst ongoing conflict, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday. He added that New Delhi is seen as a country with a greater sense of responsibility towards the global polity.
While speaking at Kautilya Economic Conclave Day 3, Jaishankar spoke about the Middle East and Russia-Ukraine conflict and said that both tensions impacted Global South countries.
“It’s not that we have been uninvolved. At various times we have played some role in communication between countries who don’t communicate with each other. The global south is feeling the pain much more of a global society and a global economy under stress. They would like somebody to do something about it. To the extent that you have a country like India which understands their concerns and is able to put it across,” Jaishankar said.
” They clearly support a lot of our initiatives. It was very visible in the UN. It’s important that we are really connected to all the major players. We are seen as a country with a greater sense of responsibility towards the global polity and it’s part of India’s own evolution…” he added.
Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi presided over a meeting of the cabinet committee on security to address the recent eruption of hostilities in West Asia. Even he spoke to Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu and said that “terrorism has no place in our world”.
“Spoke to Prime Minister Netanyahu about recent developments in West Asia. Terrorism has no place in our world.It is crucial to prevent regional escalation and ensure the safe release of all hostages. India is committed to supporting efforts for an early restoration of peace and stability,” PM Modi shared the details of calls on X.
While talking about Russia-Ukraine conflict, EAM Jaishankar said that PM Modi is one of the few leaders who has the ability to go to Kyiv and Moscow and talk to the both the leaders and find a common ground.
He mentioned that Modi has met with President Zelenskyy three times and President Putin once in recent months, while Jaishankar and the National Security Advisor have been in touch with their counterparts to explore potential areas of convergence and opportunities for improvement.
“In respect of Ukraine, in the last few months, PM Modi met President Zelenskyy thrice. He met Russian President Putin once. He’s spoken to him more often and the NSA and myself, we’ve been in touch. The reason we are doing it is we are one of the few countries and PM Modi is one of the few leaders who today has the ability to go to Kyiv and Moscow and talk to the two leaders and see what are there common points, is there something we can start or is there some convergence, some intersection that we can see which can become a strand which you pick up and try and develop and see whether things could be better?” Jaishankar said at the conclave.