- Sunday, May 26, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
With violence in Sudan due to clashes between the country’s army and paramilitary forces showing no signs of abatement, India’s external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on Thursday (20) met United Nations (UN) secretary general Antonio Guterres in New York and discussed the situation in the north African country and underscored the need for “successful diplomacy” that can lead to an early ceasefire and create the ground situation for people’s safety and welfare.
Jashankar, who met Guterres at the UN headquarters in New York, also discussed other issues, including India’s presidency of the G20 and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
Good to meet UN Secretary General @antonioguterres in New York today afternoon.
Discussed the current developments in Sudan, G20 Presidency and Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/6ZRANljEtg
— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) April 20, 2023
“Good to meet UN Secretary General @antonioguterres in New York today afternoon. Discussed the current developments in Sudan, G20 Presidency and Ukraine,” he tweeted.
“Focus understandably was on Sudan. India strongly supports efforts towards an early ceasefire, leading to creation of safe corridors. Will continue to work closely with UN and other partners in this regard,” he said.
Jaishankar is headed on a nine-day trip to Guyana, Panama, Colombia and the Dominican Republic beginning on Friday (21), his first visit as the external affairs minister to these Latin American countries and the Caribbean.
Before his visit to Latin America, he arrived in New York.
He said while his trip to South America was planned quite a while ago, he “came here to the UN mainly because once the fighting started (in Sudan) on the 14th (of April), you could immediately see that this was very serious and a lot of people were trapped by the situation.”
“We knew that the UN itself has a large presence in Sudan. This will be the centre. Because at this moment, what is needed is diplomacy, successful diplomacy because it’s only diplomacy which can create the ground situation for the safety and welfare of the people out there,” Jaishankar told a small group of journalists after his meeting with Guterres.
Noting that he had a “very good meeting” with Guterres, Jaishankar said once the fighting in Sudan started out, “I felt that it was very important” that he met the UN Secretary-General Guterres.
“Most of our meeting was on the Sudan situation. We also of course discussed the G20 and we also spend some time on the Ukraine conflict. But essentially it was about the Sudan” situation, he said. Jaishankar said that in Sudan, the UN is at “the heart of the efforts” to establish a ceasefire.
“And that is really key because at the moment, unless there is a ceasefire and unless there are corridors, it is not safe for people to really come out,” he said.
“The UN is doing its bit talking to everybody. We of course have obviously very strong interest in the matter because so many Indians are there,” Jaishankar added. Around 300 people, including an Indian, have been killed, and more than 3,000 injured in clashes in Sudan, according to the World Health Organisation.
Jaishankar said New Delhi is in touch with a number of countries and he has spoken to Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia Faisal bin Farhan and UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
The foreign minister got involved into a war of words with a leader of India’s opposition Indian National Congress who accused the Narendra Modi government of not little in protecting members of a tribal community from the southern state of Karnataka who got stuck in the African country. Jaishankar accused the leader, Siddaramaiah, a former chief minister of Karnataka, of doing politics and earned a backlash from the Congress.
(With PTI inputs)
