India has expressed its expectations for Saudi Arabia to consider 'mutual interests and sensitivities' in their bilateral strategic partnership, following Riyadh's strategic defence pact with Pakistan.
Saudi Arabia's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Aljubeir visited India on Thursday and held talks with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, focusing on de-escalating tensions between India and Pakistan. The visit comes as ties between India and Pakistan have further deteriorated following Indian military strikes on terror infrastructure in Pakistan. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also arrived in New Delhi on a scheduled visit amidst the escalating tensions.
Kuwait has executed 25 Indian nationals in the past five years.
The Saudi statement came as tensions soared significantly, with Pakistan claiming that its three airbases were targeted by Indian missiles and drones early Saturday.
Led by Nationalist Congress Party-Sharadchandra Pawar MP Supriya Sule, Group 7 will engage with key countries in Africa -- Egypt, South Africa, Ethiopia -- and Qatar to present India's position on Operation Sindoor, launched in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.
India and Qatar on Tuesday agreed to elevate their relationship to a strategic partnership and double bilateral trade to USD 28 billion over the next five years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Qatari Amir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani signed agreements and MoUs to strengthen economic cooperation, including a revised double taxation avoidance agreement. The strategic partnership will cover the "entire spectrum" of the bilateral relationship, including trade, energy security, and regional and international cooperation. Both leaders also discussed ways to further strengthen and broaden the energy partnership, including "exploring mutual investments." The Amir's visit provided an "excellent opportunity" for the top leadership of the two countries to discuss and "cement a strategic partnership for enhanced future cooperation."
Heart-breaking stories of sorrow and shock began emerging from various parts of Kerala as people learned about the death of their loved ones.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday sacked his Indian-origin Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, and replaced her with James Cleverly, while former premier David Cameron, in an unusual move, is back in the frontline government as the new foreign secretary.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his first tour of Egypt, will visit the 11th century Al-Hakim mosque and will also pay tribute to the Indian soldiers who died fighting for Egypt during the First World War, said Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra on Monday.
If the Pakistani foreign minister attends the meeting in person, it will be the first such visit from Islamabad to India since 2011.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is set to hold separate bilateral talks with his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang and Russia's Sergey Lavrov at a beach resort in Goa on Thursday on the sidelines of a conclave of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) amid rapidly evolving regional security situation.
Jaishankar said the world today sees Pakistan as the epicenter of terrorism who has its fingerprints over a lot of terrorist activities.
Her comments come days after Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif sought "serious" and "sincere" talks with his Indian counterpart for the resolution of the "burning" issues, including Kashmir.
The world today sees them (Pakistan) as the epicentre of terrorism, Jaishankar said.
"Prime Minister Modi has a powerful, influential voice on the world stage. We know the Russian leadership respects India's voice and position on the world stage. I think Prime Minister Modi's intervention is very, very welcome. And we really hope that Vladimir Putin listens to those voices who are calling for peace and for de-escalation. So we very much welcome Prime Minister Modi's intervention," Cleverly told PTI in an interview.
"The fight against impunity is critical to the larger pursuit of securing peace and justice. The Security Council must send an unambiguous and unequivocal message on this count," External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told the 15-nation UN Security Council briefing on Ukraine 'Fight against impunity'.
Jaishankar said the world has experienced its consequences in terms of higher costs and shortages of foodgrains and fertilizers and fuel.
The spokesperson said that Indian ambassador to Qatar Deepak Mittal had a meeting in the foreign office in which concerns were raised with regard to some offensive tweets by individuals in India denigrating the religious personality.
Qatar, Iran and Kuwait on Sunday summoned India's Ambassadors and the key Gulf nations expressed their strong protest and condemnation of the controversial remarks of a BJP leader against Prophet Muhammad.
Doval and Salman also deliberated on a range of bilateral, regional issues including the missile and drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities last month and ways to further deepen anti-terror cooperation.
"We will soon find out. I'm in no rush. There's no testing... If you look at the end of the Obama administration, it was a disaster. What was going on. You don't have that right now. It's a much different feeling. I think people have...there's always danger, but I think people have much different feeling," he said.
"There is no dearth of talent in my ministry. I have the assistance of very able secretaries," she said in a curt tweet.
Canadian minister of state for foreign affairs, Peter Kent discusses Canada and India with rediff.com's Ajit Jain
In a tweet, Modi said India is 'delighted to welcome' the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
French President Francois Hollande arrived in New Delhi on Thursday on a two-day visit which is expected to include talks to finalise the purchase of Rafale fighter jets from Dassault Aviation.
Some interesting moments from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's trip to the United Arab Emirates.
Ahead of the first visit by President Mohamed Waheed, Maldives on Friday hoped that India will respect its sovereignty and will not play a role in the internal politics of the country.
There has neither been an agreement between Pakistan and the United States for a military offensive in North Waziristan, nor has any final decision been taken on the operation, Pakistan's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar has said.
The India-Pakistan dialogue process should be "uninterrupted and uninterruptible" and help in building trust between the two countries, Pakistan's minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar said on Tuesday.
Pakistan on Friday said that its foreign minister will be travelling to India in July to take forward the bilateral peace process. "What we can deliver at this stage is that our foreign minister will be visiting New Delhi in July," said Pakistan High Commissioner to India Shahid Malik. On the ongoing foreign secretary-level talks, Malik said, "They are going well." Pakistan currently has Hina Rabbani Khar as minister of state for foreign affairs.
PM Modi also called for a strong action plan for combating extremism.
The foreign ministers of India and Pakistan are expected to meet in New Delhi on July 27 to review progress in the bilateral peace process that was revived earlier this year, according to a media report.
India is looking forward to Pakistan's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar's visit to the country next month for crucial talks between the two sides. This was conveyed by Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, who is in Islamabad on a two-day visit for talks with her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir, to Khar when she called on the Pakistani Minister on Friday morning.
'No matter what Modi may boast about 'new India', the geopolitical reality is that India's stature diminishes when it needs a small country like Saudi Arabia under an autocratic ruler to help out with what is arguably one of the most critical templates of its diplomacy,' says Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
Prime Minister of United Kingdom David Cameron will be paying a three-day state visit to India from Tuesday.
The controversial 3,000-pound "security bond" for some "high-risk" foreign visitors to the UK, including those from India, is to be scrapped, the Home Office has confirmed.
'India, which climbed the escalation ladder first, has climbed down.'
'It remains unclear what Indian objectives have been realised in precipitating the crisis in the first instance last Tuesday,' notes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
As many as 884 Pakistani nationals, including fishermen, are currently in Indian jails and 79 of them have completed their prison terms, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Malik Ammad Khan said on Monday.
These people not only lost their homes and cars in the devastating January 12 earthquake of magnitude 7.0, but also the money they had in the banks which too collapsed in the tremor, the worst to hit the tiny Caribbean nation that claimed an estimated two lakh lives.
Union minister and former Army Chief General (retd) V K Singh on Wednesay said he has firm faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi who had taken a pledge to implement the OROP scheme for ex-servicemen.
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