Jaishankar to visit Qatar today, focus on strengthening ties across key sectors | Latest India News

New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will travel to Qatar on June 30 to meet the West Asian country’s top leaders to review bilateral relations.

This will be the second visit by a senior Indian leader to Qatar since the two sides resolved the row last year over eight former Indian navy personnel who were detained in the Gulf country, allegedly on espionage charges, and sentenced to death.

During Jaishankar’s official visit to Qatar on Sunday, he will meet the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani.

The visit will enable both sides to review various aspects of bilateral relations, including political, trade, investment, energy, security, cultural and people-to-people contacts, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Saturday. The two sides will also review regional and international issues.

The talks are expected to focus on the Israel-Hamas conflict and its consequences, as well as the situation of Hindus living in exile in Qatar.

India and Qatar have historic and friendly relations marked by regular exchange of high-level visits. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Qatar in February and held talks with Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

Modi then thanked the emir for releasing eight former sailors who, after their death sentences were commuted, were sentenced to long prison terms.

The former navy personnel, employed by a private company called Dahra Global that provided training and other services to Qatar’s armed forces, were detained in August 2022 on undeclared charges and spent months in solitary confinement before being sentenced to death in 2023. On appeal, their death sentences were commuted and they were given prison sentences of varying lengths.

Seven of the men subsequently returned to India and one of them is still in Qatar. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that he would return after completing certain formalities.

Qatar is home to an 800,000-strong Indian diaspora. In addition to remittances from Indians, Qatar has become a major trading partner for India, with bilateral trade now worth $20 billion a year.