India-Arab states discuss rejuvenating historic ties

Senior officials from India and member countries of the Arab League today agreed on a series of measures to rejuvenate the “historic ties between the Arab World and India.”

The measures include an Arab-India Cultural Festival, a symposium on Arab-India cooperation in the field of energy, the first-ever Arab-India University Presidents’ Conference, a symposium on Arab-India Cooperation in the field of media and an overarching meeting called the Arab-India Partnership Conference.

The measures were finalised at a meeting under the auspices of the Arab-India Cooperation Forum via video conference. Sanjay Bhattacharyya, Secretary at India’s Ministry of External Affairs in charge of relations with the Arab world, and Mohamed Abu Al Kheir, Assistant Foreign Minister and Permanent Representative of Egypt to the League of Arab States, co-chaired the meeting.

The meeting was also attended by the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States. “They look forward to holding the second ministerial meeting of the Arab-India Cooperation Forum, in India, at a convenient date for both sides,” a statement by the Indian ministry said.

Referring to the “unprecedented challenges” due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the senior officials “discussed ongoing collaboration between India and the Arab States in the fields of diagnostics and treatment, and exchanged views on respective national approaches to post-Covid economic recovery.”