NEW DELHI: Connectivity was the focal theme for foreign minister S Jaishankar as he pushed greater ties with Bangladesh and Iran through the Chabahar port on Thursday.
Addressing a joint press conference with his Bangladeshi counterpart, A K Abdul Momen in Dhaka where he has gone to prepare for PM Narendra Modi’s visit on March 26, Jaishankar told journalists that the game changer in the bilateral relationship would be increasing connectivity between the two countries.
Meanwhile, addressing the Maritime Summit on ‘Chabahar Day’ five years after the signing of the tripartite agreement on the establishment of a Trilateral Transport and Transit Corridor, Jaishankar said India has proposed including the Chabahar port as part of the International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC), as well as expanding it to include Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.
“The significance of our ties lies in your centrality for our ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy and your growing relevance for our ‘Act East’ policy,” Jaishankar said in Dhaka. The government emphasised the importance of Chabahar port by dedicating a programme for it. He said India sent 75,000 tonnes of wheat as humanitarian food assistance to Afghanistan in 2020 via Chabahar and assisted Iran in fighting its worst-ever locust invasion by supplying 25 tonnes of Malathion in June 2020.