India looking at five Central Asian leaders as R-Day chief guests

Delhi is operating on plans to get leaders of 5 Central Asian nations, 3 of which proportion a border with Afghanistan, as leader visitors for the Republic Day parade and celebrations on January 26, reassets informed The Indian Express.

An casual outreach has already been made via diplomatic channels, and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is probably to maintain a speak with the overseas ministers of those 5 nations over the subsequent weekend — December 18-19.

If the plans paintings out, and the Covid scenario permits, 5 Presidents — Kazakhstan’s Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Uzbekistan’s Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Tajikistan’s Emomali Rahmon, Turkmenistan’s Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow and Kyrgyzstan’s Sadyr Japarov — will come to Delhi in January, reassets said.

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan proportion a border with Afghanistan.

Earlier, plans had been being labored out to ask nations of the BIMSTEC grouping, which incorporates Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan. But that circulate did now no longer materialise, reassets said.

The 5 Central Asian nations are key to the scenario in Taliban-dominated Afghanistan, and Delhi has been attractive with them over the last few months. Recently, the NSAs of the 5 nations got here to Delhi for the local protection speak on Afghanistan hosted via way of means of NSA Ajit Doval. All of them had expressed situation on the present day scenario in Afghanistan.

Engagement with the Central Asian nations become first formulated withinside the beyond decade while India framed the “Connect Central Asia policy” in 2012.

It become given a fillip while Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to the 5 nations in July 2015 — the primary Indian Prime Minister to achieve this after those republics had been born withinside the Nineteen Nineties following the disintegration of Soviet Union.

Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had travelled to those areas after they had been a part of the Soviet Union.

The hook up with those Central Asian nations is essential for a number of reasons: protection cooperation withinside the wake of Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, China’s affect withinside the strategically important region, connectivity plans such as the International North South Transit Corridor (INSTC), electricity needs (Kazakhstan has Uranium reserves and Turkmenistan is a part of the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran fueloline pipeline), cultural hyperlinks and capacity for trade.

An invitation to be the Republic Day leader visitor is pretty symbolic from the Government’s perspective. The preference is dictated via way of means of some of reasons — strategic and diplomatic, enterprise pastimes and global geo-politics.

The ultimate time a grouping of nations become invited become in 2018, while 10 leaders from ASEAN had been leader visitors. Over the beyond few years, the leader visitors had been US President Barack Obama (2015), French President Francois Hollande (2016) and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (2017).

In 2019, after the invitation to then US President Donald Trump did now no longer paintings out, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa become known as as leader visitor. This year, India had no leader visitor after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson cancelled his go to because of the pandemic.

Sponsor Ads

• Ad Space Available - Rent it Now!

Report this Page

Created on Dec 14th 2021 05:45. Viewed 208 times.

Share on APSense

Comments