S Jaishankar to Visit Indonesia And Thailand from July 12-18
12 July, 2023 | Anamika Singh Parihar
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will be in Indonesia and Thailand from July 12-18 for his six day official visit.
External affairs minister S Jaishankar will be visiting Indonesia and Thailand from 12-18. In his Six-day official visit firstly, EAM will land in Jakarta to attend the 56th Foreign Minister’s Meeting under the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on July 13-14. And then he will visit Thailand for the Foreign Minister’s Meeting of Mekong Ganga Cooperation (MGC), according to the release from the Ministry of External Affairs said on Tuesday.
ASEAN is an intergovernmental organization of ten Southeast Asian countries: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia. According to some sources, Jaishankar will also hold bilateral talks with his counterparts from other countries on the sideline of the Foreign Minister meeting under the framework of ASEAN.
This engagement of India with the ASEAN- centered regional architecture is evidence of India’s strong commitment to the ASEAN centrality in the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region. The main focus of this year’s meeting will be on strengthening and deepening the cooperation and partnership between member nations for the benefit of the people in the region and beyond.
After Indonesia, Jaishankar will go to the Bangkok, Thailand Foreign Minister’s Meeting of Mekong Ganga Cooperation Mechanism on July 16, 2023. Mekong Ganga Cooperation is one of the oldest significant Mechanism of the lower Mekong region which is guided by India’s Act East Policy.
He will also participate in the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Foreign Minister’s Retreat in Bangkok on 17 July. BIMSTEC is an economic and technical initiative that brings together the countries of Bengal for multidimensional cooperation. This scheduled retreat would discuss ways to strengthen and deepen the main agenda of the BIMSTEC and also the necessity of strengthening the cooperation.
So, all these upcoming meetings are going to be very crucial for India and all other South Asian countries to build strong multilateral cooperation. It will give a huge opportunity to India to leverage its potential in cooperation with other countries.