EAM holds talks with NZ & Belarus leaders
External affairs minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar on Tuesday held separate talks with New Zealand deputy prime minister and foreign minister Winston Peters and also with his counterpart from Belarus Sergei Aleinik. It may be noted that while New Zealand is inclined politically to the United States, Belarus is a close ally of Russia. While developments in the Indo-Pacific region are expected to have figured in a major way in talks between India and New Zealand, the ongoing Ukraine conflict likely figured prominently during the discussions between India and Belarus. Ahead of the meeting with the Belarus foreign minister, New Delhi had said that both ministers would discuss “the whole gamut of bilateral cooperation and share perspectives on regional and global issues of mutual interest”. It had also said that India and Belarus share warm and friendly relations and cooperate in a wide range of areas, including trade and economy, defence, security, education, culture, science and technology and that “they also cooperate in regional and multilateral institutions”.
On New Zealand, New Delhi had earlier said that the entire gamut of our bilateral relationship with New Zealand would be discussed and that “India and New Zealand share warm and friendly relations based on commonalities of democratic traditions and shared values bolstered by strong people to people ties”.
It had added that the two countries are engaging in cooperation across a wide range of areas, including trade and economy, defence and security, education, and environment and climate change.