Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: India and Saudi Arabia are expected to further strengthen their multifaceted partnership during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to the Kingdom, next week. The April 22-23 visit at the invitation of Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman will be PM Modi’s third to the Kingdom after his previous visits in 2016 and 2019. It follows the State Visit of Prince Mohammed bin Salman to New Delhi in September 2023 to attend the G20 Summit and co-chair the first meeting of the India-Saudi Arabia Strategic Partnership Council.
“India and Saudi Arabia share close and friendly ties with a long history of socio-cultural and trade contacts. As strategic partners, the two countries share strong bilateral relations across various areas including political, defence, security, trade, investment, energy, technology, health, education, culture and people-to-people ties,” read a statement issued by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
“India’s relations with the Kingdom have evolved into a stronger and enduring partnership in the past decade, expanding into many strategic domains, with growing investment commitments, broadening of defence cooperation and intensive high-level exchanges across sectors,” it added.
The MEA stated that the visit of Prime Minister Modi reflects the importance India attaches to its bilateral relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and it will provide an opportunity to further deepen and strengthen the multi-faceted partnership, as well as to exchange views on various regional and international issues of mutual interest.
With Neighbourhood First continuing to be the guiding vision for the Modi Government’s foreign policy, the Prime Minister has mentioned before how India’s relations with Saudi Arabia are one of the most important bilateral relationships in the extended neighbourhood.
India and Saudi Arabia established diplomatic relations in 1947 and it was 2010 that the bilateral relationship was elevated to a Strategic Partnership.
However, the partnership has received a major boost over the last decade, especially after PM Modi’s landmark visit to Riyadh in April 2016 that led to an enhanced and comprehensive cooperation in the political, economic, security and defence realms. During the visit, King Salman conferred the Kingdom’s highest civilian honour, the ‘King Abdulaziz Sash’, on PM Modi.
