In last lap, UPA puts foreign relation exercise in top gear

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New Delhi, Nov 17 : In a new policy shift, the UPA government in its last leg is working hard at wooing and strengthening ties with countries of the West Asia and the Mediterranean. While Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is set to visit Saudi Arabia next month, New Delhi is gearing up to host the Kazak President Nursultan Nazarbayev early next year in January.

According to official sources, “Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia in December. The dates are being finalised. Infact, during the G-20 summit, in Washington DC, the prime minister was again invited by the Saudi King Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud. Singh was earlier planning to go to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but the trip to Riyadh could not take off, as mutually convenient dates could not be worked out. There were date problems.

The Gulf region is home to 4.5 million-strong Indian diaspora that sends almost $10 billion in remittances annually to India and accounts for 80 per cent of India’s oil imports. Saudi Arabia is home to around 1.56 million expatriate Indians who send home around $3 billion annually as remittances.

The ties between India and Saudi Arabia as also other Gulf nations have assumed additional importance because of the ongoing global financial crisis sparked by the credit crunch in the West.

Infact, India has extended the term of its Ambassador to Saudi Arabia MOH Farook by six months even as that Gulf nation appointed a new envoy to India, according to reports.

While Farook has been asked to continue in his post till June next year, Saudi Arabia has named veteran diplomat Faisal Hassan Trad as the replacement for Saleh Al-Ghamdi in New Delhi, who has now been appointed as the new Saudi ambassador to Greece, according to media reports.

Trad, till now Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Japan, will take up his New Delhi post in the “near future”, the newspaper reported quoting a source in that Gulf nation’s foreign ministry. Infact, Trad’s appointment is being seen as a significant move by Saudi Arabia to sustain the growing relations following King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud’s visit to New Delhi in January 2006, which saw the signing of the ‘Delhi Declaration’.