Prelude to Macron: French foreign minister visits India
Le Drian's visit was also to prepare the groundwork for the visit of French President c early next year.
New Delhi: After extensive talks between visiting French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj in New Delhi, India and France on Friday decided to strengthen cooperation both in fighting terrorism as well as in the strategic Indian Ocean region, with France too being an Indian Ocean-rim country with island territories. The strengthening of cooperation in the Indian Ocean comes, even as India, Japan, the US and Australia could be part of a formalised quadrilateral arrangement in the Indo-Pacific region. Mr Le Drian’s visit was also to prepare the “groundwork” for the visit of French President c early next year. Mr Le Drian also called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi who said that “the significance of India-France Strategic Partnership is not limited to the bilateral context, but acts as a force for peace and stability in the regional and global context as well”.
“Expressing deep concern over the increasing terrorism in the world, we decided that the two countries have to come together and resolve to remove this evil and we have made an appeal to all the countries of the world that they should collectively protest against all nations who provide sanctuary to terrorism, finance terrorism, and support terrorism,” Ms Swaraj said at a joint press event with the French minister.