On a day of intense diplomacy at the United Nations on the sidelines of the General Assembly session, Indan External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar had a trilateral meeting with Foreign Ministers Catherine Colonna of Frace and Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates with what the French called the “launch of a new trilateral format in the #Indo-Pacific zone".  

The move follows the contemporary development in diplomacy, moving beyond bilateral and regional relations to interest-based groupings spanning geographic areas, centred around the new global security and strategic focal point - Indo-Pacific. 

Colonna tweeted in French that it was the “launch of a new trilateral format in the #Indo-Pacific zone with India and the Emirates“ with “a common ambition to move forward in 4 areas: #security and #defence, #Climate, #Technologies and people(-to-people) exchanges”. Jaishankar will also be a guest at a dinner hosted by France’s President Emmanuel Macron.

Jaishankar also met one-on-one with UAE's Al Nahyan, with whose country India has close multilateral ties.

India is already involved in a quadrilateral format with the UAE with the US and Israel called I2U2 besides the Quad comprising the US, Australia, Japan and India. 

On Monday, the eve of the high-level Assembly meeting, Jaishankar held bilateral meetings also with eight foreign ministers and attended two multilateral sessions covering a geography from Indonesia to Trinidad and topics ranging from security, food and agriculture to economy and development.

Jaishankar’s first meeting of the day was with Argentina's Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero, who is the President pro tempore of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), along with Foreign Ministers Mario Adolfo Bucaro Flores of Guatemala and Amery Browne of Trinidad and Tobago.

The meeting aimed at highlighting the growing relations between India and the CELAC countries in areas ranging from health and science to trade and energy and to develop them further, the source said, pointing out that India, for example, ranks among the top five trade partners of Brazil and Argentina.

Cafiero tweeted, that CELAC “reactivated after 5 years the region's link with India”.

“The unity of the countries of the global south will make it possible to strengthen the energy and food security agenda, which is key to the development of our peoples”, he added in the Spanish language tweet.

At their meeting, Jaishankar and Browne reviewed the ties between India and Trinidad, whose population of Indian descent is about 40 per cent, and India and discussed strengthening it.

Separately Jaishankar met with Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla. India, which has had a long relationship with Cuba in diplomatic, developmental and economic spheres, is now helping the country in economic straits with a 100 million euro line of credit that was extended in July primarily to buy rice.

Cuba is expected to take over the leadership of the G77, the 137-member group of developing countries, from Pakistan.

Jaishankar’s meeting with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi centered on the work of the G20 and the transfer of the presidency. Indonesia is the president of the G20, the group of developed and emerging nations, and is scheduled to hand over the baton to India in December. India is hosting the G20 summit in New Delhi next year. 

Jaishankar also met with Foreign Minister Ian Borg of Malta with which India shares Commonwealth ties. India has business interests there and sees Malta as a gateway to the European Union now that Britain is out of it. Malta will be joining the Security Council next year as India leaves it ending its two-year term.

(SAM)