India’s Ties With West Getting Better By The Day: Jaishankar

Photo: “Great to meet my friend US @SecBlinken” posted Jaishankar from Munich.

MUNICH, (IANS) – India has an extremely strong relationship with Western countries which is getting better by the day, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said at the 60th Munich Security Conference on February 17.

The minister was speaking at a panel discussion on ‘Growing the Pie: Seizing Shared Opportunities’, which he attended along with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock.

Responding to a question by Financial Times’ Roula Khalaf on the rise of BRICS as a challenge to the West, the minister said, “I think it’s important today to make a distinction between being non-West and anti-West. I would certainly characterize India as a country, which is non-West… which has an extremely strong relationship with Western countries getting better by the day.”

Blinken said that the relationship between India and the United States “is the strongest it has ever been. What we don’t need to do and what we’re not doing is trying to somehow design the world to rigid blocks… The relationship between our countries, I would argue, is the strongest it has ever been,” Blinken said.

“(It) Makes no difference that India happens to be a leading member of BRICS, we are leading member of the G7… We have a multiplicity of things that we’re doing together every single day in different ways of organizing ourselves,” the Secretary of State added.