External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met his German counterpart Heiko Mass in Berlin on Wednesday. He tweeted “A very good meeting with FM @HeikoMaas of Germany. Discussed Afghanistan, the Gulf, Indo-Pacific, multilateralism, connectivity and technology issues. Thank him for Germany’s strong support for expanded India-EU cooperation.”
Jaishankar described the India-Germany relationship as a broad-based one – with more than thirty mechanisms between the two countries. These mechanisms cover governments, students, professionals, economy, business, people-to-people, civil society etc.
Furthermore, he emphasized on common values of liberal democracies and their role in evaluating global values and challenges. He said, “We certainly do discuss shared concerns like terrorism, extremism, I think on many of these we have common evaluations and clearly a stronger working relationship.”
“Today most of our discussions focused on bilateral and global issues, some of them again as my colleague told you included multilateralism, connectivity, climate change, technology issues, counter-terrorism issues and we also spent a little time discussing India and the EU, a relationship in which we greatly value the role and influence of Germany”, EAM S. Jaishankar said, while addressing the media.
The Minister also mentioned a discussion on ‘Alliance for Multilateralism’ and India’s support for the initiative. He said, “We appreciate this initiative, the Alliance for Multilateralism, because today multilateralism is under threat, under stress I would say, from both nationalism and mercantilism, and we believe in the centrality of the United Nations, in the relevance of the WTO to international trade, and we believe multilateralism should be recognized, it should be preserved, it should be protected”.
Emphasizing adherence to international law, EAM S Jaishankar discussed expediting the reforms in the UN Security Council with his German counterpart.
Finally, he thanked the German foreign minister for support to International Solar Alliance and the Coalition For Disaster Resilient Infrastructure. Both are multilateral initiatives led by India.
