Highlighting the recent meetings of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said that PM Modi is one of the few leaders in the world today who can engage with both Moscow and Kyiv.
The Foreign Minister was addressing the Kautilya Economic Conclave on Sunday, where he emphasized the role India has played in trying to find a point of convergence between the two parties in the conflict.
“In respect of Ukraine, in the last few months, PM Modi met President Zelenskyy three times. He met Russian President Putin once. He’s spoken to him more often, and the NSA (National Security Advisor) and I have been in touch,” Jaishankar said.
He added, “The reason we are doing it is that we are one of the few countries, and PM Modi is one of the few leaders who today have the ability to go to Kyiv and Moscow, talk to the two leaders, and see what their common points are. Is there something we can start, or is there some convergence, some intersection that we can see, which can become a strand to pick up and try to develop to see whether things could be better?”
Prime Minister Modi visited Russia in July and Ukraine in August this year. He also met with Zelenskyy in New York last month on the sidelines of the 79th United Nations General Assembly, marking their third meeting in around three months.
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India has maintained a firm position in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and has expressed its willingness to contribute in all possible ways to facilitate an early return of peace. New Delhi has emphasized the need for sincere and practical engagement between all stakeholders to develop innovative solutions that will have broad acceptability and contribute to the early restoration of peace in the Ukraine conflict, which started in February 2022.
In a major statement, PM Modi told President Putin that “this is not the era of war” on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Uzbekistan in 2022. This statement even made it into the G20 communiqué under India’s presidency.
Further, speaking on the escalating situation in the Middle East, Jaishankar noted that the conflict is even more challenging due to the numerous parties involved and their lack of acknowledgment regarding their roles in the conflict. “The Middle East is trickier in a way. There are more parties, not all of them acknowledge their role in what they are doing,” he said.
The Foreign Minister acknowledged India’s role in bridging gaps between countries that don’t communicate with each other. “It’s not that we have been uninvolved. At various times, we have played some role in communication between countries that 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 express them,” 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.
Earlier on Saturday, Jaishankar, while delivering the Sardar Patel Lecture on Governance organized by the IC Centre for Governance, expressed his concerns over the rising tensions in the Middle East. “The Middle East is not an opportunity. The Middle East is a cause of great concern and deep worry. The conflict is widening—what we saw as a terrorist attack, then the response, then we saw what happened in Gaza. Now you are seeing exchanges in Lebanon between Israel and Iran,” the Foreign Minister said.
Highlighting the repercussions of the Middle East conflict, Jaishankar noted that escalating tensions have resulted in a significant surge in shipping and insurance rates, thereby affecting global trade. “The Houthis are firing on the Red Sea. This is actually costing us. It’s not that somebody is neutral and you benefit. Shipping rates have gone up. Insurance rates have increased. Exports and foreign trade have been affected. Oil prices have risen.”
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