India's Jaishankar concludes New York visit with over 50 meetings, focus shifts to Washington

India’s External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has concluded his New York leg of the 10-day visit to the United States, where he held more than 50 meetings, of which 40 were one-to-one, apart from bilateral, trilateral and group meetings.

Many of his meetings with his counterparts were bilateral ones while some of them were informal meetings.

The bilateral meetings he had with are: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Sweden foreign ministers (FM) Ann Linde, Syria FM Mekdad, Belarus FM Makei, Armenia FM, Saudi FM Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Russia FM Lavrov, Venezuela FM Carlos Faria, Jordan FM Hsafadi, Cyprus FM Ioannis Kasoulides, Maldives foreign minister Abdulla Shahid, Australia FM Penny Wong, Madagascar FM Richard J. Randriamandrato, Morocco FM Bourita, Spain FM José Manuel Albares Bueno, FMs of Greece, Paraguay, Moldova, Mexico, Japan, German, Bolivia, Norway, Estonia, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Austria, Libya, Türkiye, Trinidad & Tobago, Albania, Malta, Egypt, Indonesia, UAE, Cuba, Ethiopia, Serbia and UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.

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No structured bilateral meeting took place between Jaishankar and his Chinese or Pakistani counterparts given the present state of the relationship.

Jaishankar also participated in four key trilaterals at the ministerial level. These are the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA), India-France-Australia, India-Indonesia-Australia and India-France-UAE.

The IBSA meet issued a joint statement focussing on cooperation in multilateral organisations, South-South Cooperation and United Nations and Security Council reform.

India will be hosting the 6th IBSA summit on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in November 2022 even as the presidency of the grouping is handed over to Brazil.

The other three trilateral meets focused on the Indo-Pacific issue.

The Indian foreign minister attended a meeting of five grouping meetings. These are: Quad, BRICS, G4, India-Caricom, G77 and bodies such as L69, India-CELAC Quartet.

The Quad’s joint statement said the focus has been on ransomware and the announcement of a partnership on humanitarian assistance.

India will be hosting the Quad foreign ministers meeting next year, and the summit in 2024.

While the G4 meet, including India, Brazil, Germany, and Japan, called for reforms of the United Nations Security Council, BRICS in a media statement saw China and Russia “reiterating the importance to the status and role of Brazil, India and South Africa in international affairs” and expressing support to their aspiration to “play a greater role in the UN”.

The statement, a standard one, does not clarify if China is keen on India getting a seat on the UNSC.

Notably, Beijing has been putting a block on UN reforms, especially India being on the high table.

Jaishankar also addressed the United Nations Security Council and the United Nations General Assembly, where he put India's position and worldview on several issues.

The UNSC meet was on Ukraine and it was chaired by France. In the meeting, Jaishankar said, "Trajectory of the Ukraine conflict is a matter of profound concern for the entire international community" while expressing New Delhi's worries over the situation.

The UNGA speech undoubtedly was the key focus. The 17-minute-long speech saw, sending a message to both Islamabad on the issue of terrorism, and Beijing on four key counts—debt crisis, stalling UN reforms, stopping listing of terrorists at UN and stability and security of Indo-Pacific.

He said, "Those who politicize the UNSC 1267 Sanctions regime, sometimes to the extent of defending proclaimed terrorists, do so at their own peril.”

China, earlier this month, put a hold on the listing of the key mastermind of 26/11 Sajid Mir from listing at the UNSC's international terror list—the 1267 Al Qaeda Sanctions committee. This was the third time that China blocked the listing of a Pakistan terrorist after Abdul Rehman Makki and Abdul Rauf.

In the next leg of his visit, the Indian foreign minister will be holding talks with US Secretary of state Blinken in Washington.

On Monday evening, the US Secretary of State will host a working dinner for Jaishankar in McLean, Virginia, according to the state department schedule.