Jaishankar to visit Qatar today with focus on boosting ties across key sectors
External affairs minister S Jaishankar will visit Qatar on June 30 for meetings with the West Asian country’s top leadership to review bilateral relations.
This will be the second visit by a senior Indian leader to Qatar since the two sides resolved an imbroglio last year over eight former Indian Navy personnel who were detained in the Gulf country, reportedly on charges of espionage, and sentenced to death.
During Jaishankar’s official visit to Qatar on Sunday, he will meet Prime Minister and foreign minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani.
The visit will enable the two sides to review various aspects of bilateral relations, including political, trade, investment, energy, security, cultural and people-to-people contacts, the external affairs ministry said on Saturday. The two sides will also review regional and international issues.
The Israel-Hamas conflict and its fallout and the welfare of Indian expatriates in Qatar are expected to figure in the discussions.
India and Qatar share historic and friendly relations marked by regular exchange of high-level visits. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Qatar in February and held talks with the Amir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
At the time, Modi had thanked the Amir for the release of the eight former naval personnel, who had been given lengthy prison sentences after their death sentences were commuted.
The former naval personnel, employed by a private company called Dahra Global that provided training and other services to Qatar’s armed forces, were detained in August 2022 on undeclared charges and spent months in solitary confinement before being sentenced to death in 2023. Following an appeal, their death sentences were commuted and they were given prison terms of varying durations.
Seven of the men subsequently returned to India, while one of them continues to be in Qatar. The external affairs ministry has said he is expected to return after the completion of certain formalities.
Qatar is home to an 800,000-strong Indian diaspora. Besides remittances from Indian nationals, Qatar has emerged as an important commercial partner for India, with two-way trade currently worth $20 billion a year.