New Delhi: External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar, during an event in Pune, spoke about foreign policy challenges in the present times saying that engaging United States, managing China and reassuring Russia, all these have become more complicated.
The Union Minister said that reassuring Russia has become more complicated because of the Ukraine war while at the same time emphasising on Europe as one of India’s important partner.
“…Engaging America has become more complicated. You all know why. Managing China has become complicated. Reassuring Russia became complicated because of the Ukraine war, the pressure on us to move away from Russia…” EAM said.
“Europe is one very important partner with whom we need to make more effort,” he added.
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Continuing with his thought, Jaishankar said, “And then when you come to the neighbourhood, the neighbours we have, they are smaller than us and every one of them is linked to us. Politics happens there too. Things go up and down. Sometimes they praise us, sometimes they criticise us. Because we are actually an issue in their politics as well…”
Recalling how India helped its neighbours during Covid and Ukraine war, Jaishankar said, “Last week there was a big cyclone in Sri Lanka, so within the same day we were there with help. If you look at COVID, ask our neighbours, where did your vaccine come from? It came from India. When the Ukraine war started and everyone’s petrol and wheat and fertiliser supply was cut off, it came out of India…”
Jaishankar on Why World Today Is In Era of Coalition Politics
Jaishankar in another statement said that the world today is like an era of coalition politics. No one has a majority. No coalition has a majority. So what happens is that constantly combinations are formed, deals are struck, somebody is up, somebody is down, some issue comes up.
