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represented India in the inauguration of President Hasan Rouhani in
August 2013. Turkey was the other country which hosted President
Pranab Mukherjee in October 2013, and weeks before the Arab Spring
protests Vice-President Ansari visited Ankara in October 2011.
During the same period, India hosted Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas (September 2012), Bahraini Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-
Khalifa (May 2012), Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi (November
2013) Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa (February 2014) and the
then Saudi Crown Prince Salman (February 2014).
In short, between December 2010 and May 2014, Indian president,
vice-president and prime minister skipped the entire Arab world. Political
engagements were confined to visits by the external affairs minister to
Turkey (May 2011), Israel and Palestine (January 2012), Egypt (March
2012), Iran (May 2013), Saudi Arabia (May 2013), Iraq (June 2013),
Turkey (July 2013), Bahrain (December 2013) and Morocco, Tunisia and
Sudan (January 2014) or by minister of state for external affairs to Bahrain,
Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE. This was the sorry state of
affairs until the arrival of Prime Minister Modi. Thus, India’s first signifi-
cant political visit since late 2010 with the Arab world had to wait until
August 2015 when Prime Minister Modi went to the UAE.
At the same time, even before his maiden visit, Modi exhibited his
agenda for the region, especially the energy-rich Persian Gulf. On July 3,
he met Omani Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs Yusuf bin Alawi,
the first foreign dignitary from the region to meet the Indian leader.^1 A
few months later, Modi met the then Saudi Crown Prince Salman during
the G-20 meeting in Brisbane.
It is possible to identify a pattern in Modi’s engagements with the
region.
- Until 2018, Modi has been undertaking standalone visits to the
region and this included his July 2017 visit to Israel when he skipped
Palestine. He did the same while visiting Palestine in February 2018. - If one excludes his Israel visit and the one to Turkey for the Antalya
G-20 meeting in November 2014, Modi’s sojourns took him to
critical countries along the Persian Gulf, namely, the UAE, Saudi
Arabia, Iran, Qatar and Oman.
(^1) On June 9 Prime Minister Modi met Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi who
came as a special envoy of President Xi Jinping.
P. R. KUMARASWAMY AND MD. M. QUAMAR