‘UAE a key partner in extended neighbourhood’
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has emerged as one of India’s key partners in the extended neighbourhood as it is very important for the country’s national security and is home to a large number of Indian expatriates, external affairs minister S Jaishankar said on Thursday.
“This is certainly a relationship where... all the attention that we have invested, and they have invested, it has been repaid in very, very impressive outcomes,” Jaishankar said at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
In recent years, the Indian government has assiduously courted several key players in West Asia, including the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar, even as it has built up its strategic relationship with Israel.
Efforts have been made to diversify relations with these countries from the traditional field of energy by adding new areas of cooperation.
The UAE is home to more than three million Indian expatriates, the largest ethnic community in the emirates comprising professionals and blue-collar workers and their families.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the UAE in 2015 was the first by an Indian premier in 34 years, following a trip by Indira Gandhi in 1981.
Jaishankar, who will travel to the UAE on December 4, said the country is important because it is a very big energy partner, has a large Indian expatriate population and a lot of offshore finance and business is done there.
However, he noted that the UAE had “seriously suffered from a want of political attention” since the 1980s. He described it as one of the key countries in the extended neighbourhood, and said it is “enormously important” for national security, hugely relevant for economic growth, and is also extremely active in the international scene.
The India-UAE relationship is a good example of the kind of things that have changed in the last few years, with New Delhi becoming more clear-headed about its priorities and the countries it should engage with to advance its interests, he said.
Jaishankar added that the Abraham Accords signed by Israel and key Arab states such as the UAE had opened up possibilities in connectivity, logistics, trade, technology, innovation and agriculture.
Instead of having only three separate relationships with countries such as the US, Israel and the UAE, India could also work with them through a collective to add an additional layer to do many more things, he said. West Asia is an example of the complex world that India operates in, and also how the country deals with partners with contradictory interests, he added.
JAISHANKAR SAYS THAT THE UAE HAD ‘SERIOUSLY SUFFERED FROM A WANT OF POLITICAL ATTENTION’ SINCE THE 1980S, AND THAT IT IS ‘ENORMOUSLY IMPORTANT’ FOR NATIONAL SECURITY