NEW DELHI: Amid reports that a potential India-Pakistan detente is being facilitated by the UAE, foreign minister S Jaishankar will travel to Abu Dhabi on Sunday. Incidentally, his visit will coincide with the visit of Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who began a three-day visit to the UAE on Saturday.
Announcing the visit, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi tweeted, “At the invitation of his counterpart, S Jaishankar will be visiting Abu Dhabi on April 18. His discussions will focus on economic cooperation and community welfare.” The UAE has one of the largest groups of Indian expatriates. Jaishankar is expected to meet his UAE counterpart Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan. He is expected to talk about Indian workers’ repatriation, which may be held up due to India’s Covid-19 surge.
However, attention will be on the fact that the Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers will be in the same place at the same time. Qureshi held talks with Sheikh Abdullah on Saturday. There is no clarity whether Qureshi and Jaishankar may have a meeting. There was no meeting between the two at Dushanbe during the Heart of Asia conference.
The UAE ambassador to the US Yousef Al Otaiba said at a seminar that the UAE had played a key role in bringing about a ceasefire on the Line of Control and the International Border between India and Pakistan with an aim to normalising relations. This was the first time an UAE official acknowledged what has been speculated. There have been reports of the UAE and Saudi Arabia conveying “messages” to Pakistan but the extent of the involvement is unclear. Al Otaiba suggested that the effort was to improve ties.
Al Otaiba’s words carry weight because he is believed to be one of the architects behind the Abraham Accords that restored diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE. Answering a question by former US NSA H R McMaster, Al Otaiba said, “They might not sort of become best friends but at least we want to get it to a level where it’s functional, it’s operational, where they are speaking to each other, where there are lines of communication and that’s our goal.”
Jaishankar was in Abu Dhabi recently too, when it was speculated that he was responsible for taking the India-Pakistan thaw forward. Both countries reaffirmed a ceasefire on February 25 The UAE is a strategic ally, so India’s comfort level is higher, specially in areas such as India-Pakistan relations.