Media Center

Transcript of Media Briefing by Foreign Secretary on the sidelines of SCO Summit in Astana (June 09, 2017)

June 09, 2017

Foreign Secretary, Dr. S. Jaishankar: I am here to brief you on the two bilateral meetings that happened today. Morning meeting with the President of China Xi Jinping and thereafter the meeting of PM with President of Uzbekistan Mr. Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

Yesterday the spokesperson has briefed you people about the meeting with the President Nazarbayev as soon as we arrived. Basically where the China meeting is concerned, it was a very cordial and positive meeting.

Prime Minister thanked President Xi for China’s support which made possible India’s accession to the SCO. I would share with you broad lines of discussion, obviously I can’t get into deep details.

The broad thrust of it was that at the time of global uncertainty, India-China relations are a factor of stability and as the world becomes more multi-polar it was important for India and China to work together more closely.

I think there was also an understanding that where we have differences it was important that those differences should not become disputes and in fact they were handled well, could even be opportunities.

A number of specific areas came up for discussion which included economic cooperation broadly, specifically trade issues, investment issues, some connectivity issues, the establishment of industrial parks, cooperation in railways. There were also a number of security and defence issues including counter-terrorism cooperation, security cooperation, defence exchanges.

There was a very positive signaling on the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra, some talk of parliamentary exchanges, youth exchanges and there was a fairly detailed discussion on cultural cooperation. President Xi in fact spoke very highly of Indian films. He said that the film Dangal was doing particularly well and that he himself has actually seen it.

They were looking forward to next international day of Yoga celebrations. Also about media cooperation, about more think-tank exchanges. So as you can see pretty much the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation was discussed and I think the meeting ended with a sense that there should be more frequent occasions for both sides to meet including at the leadership level. Presidnet Xi invited PM for the BRIC Summit in Xiamen, PM accepted and said that he look forward to the visit.

So this is broadly the rundown that I can give you on the China bilateral.

On the Uzbek bilateral again the Prime Minister remembered the last SCO summit, he said that it was a very important step for us to get our membership this time and a lot of the conversation again was on the bilateral economic cooperation. We already have a significant pharmaceutical footprint in Uzbekistan.

There was a lot of interest in growing that. There is a substantial Uzbek medical tourism to India so PM made some suggestions on how we could actually cooperate more in the field of health and medical treatment. Then there was what we could do in terms of trade because there was a sense really that our trade numbers should be in the multiple billions rather than the high hundreds of millions.

So whether we could reach some long term arrangement in key areas where Uzbekistan has export potential. There was some discussion on political issues specifically because the SCO itself is terrorism focused. Afghanistan, counter-terrorism, threat of radicalization that set of issues came up and again interestingly actually this whole cultural cooperation because India has a very strong cultural personality in this part of the world.

Prime Minister invited the President of Uzbekistan to visit India at his convenience because he has just taken over a few months ago. SO this is very briefly the rundown. I could answer a few questions but it has to be very few and very short because I have to go back.

Question: On NSG and on Maulana Masood Azhar, what is China’s stand?

Foreign Secretary, Dr. S. Jaishankar: I think both you know the answer to the question before you are asking me the question. This meeting was sort of a broad assessment of the relationship. I would say that you should rest assured that there was a sense that both sides would address each other’s concerns very seriously.

Question: Did China bring up India’s boycott of the OBOR?

Foreign Secretary, Dr. S. Jaishankar: Again, I would repeat that the meeting was very cordial, meeting was very positive. There was discussion on connectivity, how we could work together. In fact, to my recollection, the AIIB i.e. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the BCIM Corridor came up for discussion.

Question: Did PM raised the issue of CPEC?

Foreign Secretary, Dr. S. Jaishankar: I will again give you a sense of the meeting. The sense of the meeting was that two countries have great benefit, great interest in working with each other and we will have differences but where we have differences how do we work through those differences, find common ground where they are possible and also a sense that wherever we have concerns, each side would look at it with a degree of seriousness.

Question: The recent airspace violation?

Foreign Secretary, Dr. S. Jaishankar: I think again these are the President and the Prime Minister of a country meeting, I think you people must see this summit level meeting for what it is.

Question: What exactly was the Chinese stand on Mansarovar Yatra?

Foreign Secretary, Dr. S. Jaishankar: I think the broad signal from the Chinese side was that they accord us facilities which are very appreciated by the public in India and they understand that and they would continue to facilitate and expand its possibility.

Once again, Thank you very much.

(Concludes)

Write a Comment Write a Comment
Comments

Post A Comment

  • Name *
    E-mail *
  • Write Your Comment *
  • Verification Code * Verification Code