Manama:

The relationship or absence of it between Israel and Iran has been a source of concern and some of India’s diplomatic efforts are focused on that aspect, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday.

In an address at the Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, S Jaishankar, without directly referring to attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea by Houthi operators, said India has an interest in trying to mitigate the security situation.

S Jaishankar, on a two-day visit to Bahrain from Saturday, touched upon various issues, including how to prevent conflicts from spreading further, the importance of key connectivity projects and the need to improve the security situation in the region.

“In recent times, for all of us, the relationship or absence of it between Israel and Iran has been particularly a source of concern, so some of our diplomatic efforts has focused on that particular aspect,” he said.

The external affairs minister, however, did not elaborate on India’s efforts.

There have been mounting global concerns over escalating tensions between Iran and Israel in the last few months.

In October, Iran fired around 200 missiles into Israel in response to Israel’s killing of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and other commanders of the operator outfit. Israel subsequently retaliated against the Iranian strikes.

The external affairs minister, talking about the importance of West Asia for New Delhi, also highlighted India’s sustained economic growth.

“India is today almost a USD 4 trillion economy, (and) we expect to comfortably double that this decade. Our trade is today around USD 800 billion, that too should at least double this decade,” he said.

“So I again cannot overstate the stakes that we have because this region is the immediate for us the world beyond our borders that immediately awaits us,” he said.

In his remarks, S Jaishankar also referred to the situation in the Red Sea and said the security domain is a key area for strategic regional cooperation.

“And we have had very significant security challenges in this area with a very deep and disastrous impact for trade in Asia,” he said.

“So when we look at the diversion of maritime routes and the insurance costs, and the shipping costs and the container costs and the delay that it has imposed, obviously, you know, India, but not just India, we have an interest in trying to mitigate that situation,” he added.

In view of the volatile situation in the Red Sea, shipments were diverted to other routes that had increased the cost of transportation significantly.

The external affairs minister also briefly spoke about India’s naval presence in the region.

“We have actually had a naval presence in this region in the Gulf of Aden, Somalia, Northern Arabian Sea. Over the year it’s been roughly about 30 ships, the peak was about 12 ships at one point of time which were deployed there,” he said.

“And in the last year, we have actually responded to 24 actual incidents, escorted 250 ships, rescued 120 crew members. So we are making our contributions, we working in tandem with Operation Prosperity Guardian. We have our own nationally named operation,” he said.

‘Operation Prosperity Guardian’ is a US-led military mission that was launched late last year to jointly address security challenges in the southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

S Jaishankar said India intends to increase its bilateral exercise both in the Gulf with its partners as well as in the Mediterranean.

“So in the Gulf, I think the Gulf countries have been our fairly regular partners by now and in almost every case we have seen an uptick in our shared activities,” he said.

“In the Mediterranean, particularly, apart from Israel, with Greece, with Egypt, we have had significant exercises this year,” he added.

S Jaishankar also elaborated on various connectivity projects, including the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral (IMTT) highway, the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) and the ambitious India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC) initiative.

“In fact, one day, when these corridors are done, the IMEC will bring the Atlantic to India, the IMTT will actually take that connectivity from India to the Pacific,” he said.

“So you can actually envisage a connectivity corridor from the Atlantic to the Pacific going through southern Europe, going through the Arabian peninsula, cutting through the southern part of the Asian continent.” “So this truly has a game-changing possibility. But like everything game-changing, this needs obviously a lot of hard work, a lot of resources and many obstacles to overcome,” he added.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

The SAARC is “not moving forward” and meetings of the regional grouping have not happened in the last few years as one of its members is practising “cross-border terrorism”, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday.

The EAM’s remarks on the stalling of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), without naming any country, comes ahead of his scheduled visit to Pakistan mid-October to attend a key meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Islamabad.

The SAARC has not been very effective since 2016 as its biennial summits have not taken place since the last one at Kathmandu in 2014.

“At the moment, SAARC is not moving forward. We have not had a meeting of SAARC for a very simple reason, there is one member of SAARC who is practising cross-border terrorism, at least against one more member of SAARC, maybe more,” Jaishankar said in response to a query on revival of the grouping at an event here.

“If you are all sitting together and cooperating, and at the same time this kind of terrorism goes on… it actually poses a challenge for us that do you ignore it and go ahead, and in which case you are normalising it, you are accepting it that this is a legitimate tool of statecraft,” he added.

The EAM said at some point if time, “we came to the decision that we should not do it”.

The SAARC is a regional bloc comprising India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

“Terrorism is something which is unacceptable and despite a global view of it, if one of our neighbours continues to do it, then there must be a pause to it… it cannot be business as usual in SAARC. That’s the reason why the SAARC meeting has not happened in recent years,” the minister said.

He said this during an interaction after delivering the Sardar Patel Lecture on Governance organised by IC Centre for Governance here.

But, because SAARC meetings have not happened, does not mean the regional activities have stopped, he said.

“In fact, I would argue that in the last five-six years, we have seen far more regional integration in the Indian subcontinent than we have seen since the partition of India,” the minister said.

“If you look today with Bangladesh, with Nepal, with Bhutan, with Myanmar, with Sri Lanka… you have railway lines being restored, roads being rebuilt, electricity grids being built… you have ferries, you have fertiliser supplies… and then medical visas. So, I would actually say that what is happening in the neighbourhood, it is happening because we are espousing this policy called ‘Neighbourhood First’,” he said.

Earlier delivering the lecture, he also spoke of the political scenario during Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s era.

“During the end of the Sardar’s life, India and China were both re-emerging in the global order as modern nation states. The complexities of their relationship were just beginning to be visible,” Jaishankar said in his address.

Today, “our ties are again at cross-roads”. The present situation does not serve the interests of either nation, he said, referring to the lingering border row in eastern Ladakh.

“There is a way forward. And that is by reinstating peace and tranquility in the border areas, respecting the LAC and not seeking to change the status quo. Beyond that, the three mutuals — mutual respect, mutual sensitivity and mutual interests –” offer a credible pathway. After all, the rise of Asia can only happen when India and China have a positive dynamic,” he said.

Praising Patel and recalling his legacy, Jaishankar said the nationalist leader was dealing with the enormous challenge of reconstructing India after two centuries of colonialism.

“But we must not forget that he was doing so at a time when the international order was being reshaped after the Second World War, and as decolonialisation just began. Reading the big picture right and making our calculations was not easy,” he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)