India-UAE-France to trilaterally cooperate on defence and energy

New Delhi: India-France-UAE conducted a trilateral dialogue, where the nations discussed cooperation in the fields of energy, defence, environment and innovation. As per the Ministry of External Affairs of India, Foreign Secretary of India Vinay Mohan Kwatra took part in the discussions held with the foreign counterparts.

The countries have agreed on close cooperation on various matters and regularly track the progress made in the trilateral ambitions of the nations.

Foreign Secretary Kwatra also met Anne-Marie Descotes, the French Foreign Secretary, during his official visit to France. Earlier on February 4, 2023, prior to the meeting, the Foreign Ministers of India, France and UAE held a phone call where they adopted a roadmap for the trilateral cooperation.

The External Affairs Minister of India- S Jaishankar, the Foreign Minister of France- Catherine Colonna and the United Arab Emirates(UAE) Foreign Minister- Abdulla bin Zayed Al Nahyan discussed collaboration in education, green energy, maritime and business.

The sides, during the phone call, agreed that the trilateral cooperation initiative would serve as a forum to promote the design and execution of the collaborative projects of energy that would particularly focus on solar and nuclear energy, tackling climate crisis as well as conservation of biodiversity, especially in the Indian Ocean region.

It is for this purpose that the countries have been working on the possibility of working with the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) to explore and execution of concrete and actionable projects on clean energy, the environment and the conservation of biodiversity.

Notably, the foreign ministers of these three nations previously met in a trilateral format in September 2022 during the United Nations General Assembly in New York.