S Jaishankar headed to Atlanta for G20 ministers’ meet; CHOGM next stop

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar with Austria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Beate Meinl-Reisinger in New Delhi on Wednesday. (PTI)

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be headed to Atlanta in the US to attend the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting to be held on October 30-31. This comes just days after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited India, October 20-22.

Jaishankar will also attend the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Atlanta, along with the top diplomats from Australia and Japan. They were supposed to meet in Australia last week, but that couldn’t take place due to scheduling conflicts. The Quad foreign ministers had last met in Delhi in May this year.

From Atlanta, Jaishankar will travel to Antigua & Barbuda to attend the CHOGM (Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting) from November 1 to 4. The External Affairs Minister’s forthcoming trips are part of Delhi’s engagement with multilateral groupings, and it offers an opportunity to have bilateral engagements with counterparts from other countries. Announcing Jaishankar’s travels, Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said on Wednesday, “External Affairs Minister will be attending the G-20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting to be held in Atlanta… On the sidelines of it, he will also participate in a QUAD Foreign Ministers’ meeting and have several bilateral engagements with his counterparts.”

Jaishankar’s visit is also being seen as laying the groundwork for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s possible visit to the US for the G20 leaders’ summit in mid-December.

The visit to the US will once again give an opportunity for Jaishankar to meet Rubio and discuss the state of bilateral relations. As India and the US look to finalise a trade deal, stalled by tensions over American tariffs and India’s purchase of Russian oil, Rubio and Jaishankar had focused on “energy security and defence cooperation” during their talks in Mumbai last week.

This is significant since the US is looking at selling energy and defence equipment to meet its $500 billion trade target by 2030. The two sides had also re-affirmed the importance of advancing the India-US strategic partnership.

At the G20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting, the ministers are expected to discuss regional and global issues, including the war between US and Iran, which has created an energy crisis across the world including in India.

Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 27 years... Read More