- Friday, April 19, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIAN prime minister will virtually take part in the upcoming G20 Extraordinary Leaders’ Summit on Afghanistan on Tuesday (12).
The country’s ministry of external affairs said in a statement on Monday (10), “At the invitation of the Italian Presidency of the G-20, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will participate in the upcoming G20 Extraordinary Leaders’ Summit on Afghanistan on 12 October in virtual format.”
The ministry said the agenda of the meeting would include talks on response to humanitarian needs and access to basic services and livelihood in the war-ravaged nation where the Taliban stormed back to power in August.
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The agenda would also see discussions on security and fight against terrorism and mobility, migration and human rights, the ministry added.
Modi had earlier taken part in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation – Collective Security Treaty Organisation outreach summit on Afghanistan. India’s external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar participated in the meeting of G20 foreign ministers on Afghanistan on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York recently.
The announcement on the meeting of leaders of the world’s 20 major economies was initially made by Italian prime minister Mario Draghi at the end of September. Modi’s participation would take place a few weeks ahead of the summit of the G20 leaders scheduled in Italian capital Rome for October 30 and 31.
Reuters reported recently that Draghi spoke to various world leaders including Russian president Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping about the need to hold a special meeting to decide on strategies to confront the crisis in Afghanistan.
According to a report by global news agency Reuters, Draghi had recently spoken to other world leaders, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China Xi Jinping, about the need to organise a special meeting to lay down strategies to confront the crisis that was unfolding in the war-ravaged nation.
The external affairs ministry further said the G20 “is an important platform to help build international consensus and facilitate a coordinated approach between multilateral organisations, including the UN and its agencies, and global and regional actors to address the worsening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan”.
