New Delhi: Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Secretary (West) Sanjay Verma will touch down in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Friday evening to attend a summit on 5-6 August on peace talks to resolve the Ukraine war, his office confirmed to ThePrint.
This comes after India participated in a peace conclave in Denmark and a fundraising conference for rebuilding Ukraine’s war-ravaged economy in London in June.
After the Denmark meeting, Verma had held a round of India-Ukraine foreign office consultations with Emine Dzhaparova, Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine.
The participation in these three conferences comes weeks before the G20 Leaders’ Summit is to be held in New Delhi, prompting experts to wonder whether India is also acting in its own interest to lay the ground for a smooth-sailing G20 Leaders’ Summit in September.
“India also hopes that before the G20 summit, some progress is made on the ground situation in Ukraine which is deteriorating by the day,” former ambassador Anil Trigunayat told ThePrint.
Saudi Arabia has invited 30-odd countries, such as the UK, the US, Brazil, South Africa, Chile, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico, Zambia and those from the European Union (EU), for the peace summit in Jeddah. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will also be present.
However, Russia was not invited and China’s participation remains uncertain.
Russia’s absence seems to have led some to believe that the aim of the summit is to give Ukraine an “audience”.
“The summit itself is shadowed by Russia’s absence. It has dampened expectations of any concrete outcomes in terms of a peace plan,” said Kamal Madishetty, Senior Researcher, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS).
“Perhaps the main point of this summit is that Saudi Arabia is able to provide Ukraine an audience with the Global South, and countries like India which have done well to walk a tightrope,” he added.
New Delhi, which has imported large amounts of Russian crude oil and is also providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine, has consistently called for dialogue and diplomacy to end the ongoing war.
Last week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov addressed the fact that Russia would be absent from the peace talks in Jeddah, saying: “Russia will follow this meeting. It remains to be fully understood what goals are set and what, in fact, the organisers plan to talk about.”
Trigunayat speculated that Russia may have given Saudi Arabia “an implicit nod” to hold the summit in case a realistic plan to cease hostilities can be achieved.
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India likely to play role of ‘observer’
Saudi Arabia’s decision to hold the upcoming summit has been viewed by some publications as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud’s attempt to play peacemaker after years of a murky reputation on the global stage.
A report by Politico published Friday recalled how his country was once “dismissed globally” over the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but is now trying to “burnish its credentials as a peacemaker”.
Currently, Saudi Arabia seems to enjoy amicable relations with both Moscow and Kyiv, having maintained a good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin while also helping in American and Ukrainian prisoner exchanges.
The Jeddah summit also comes after African leaders visited Ukraine and Russia in June to come up with a path for peace, though the visit did not result in any joint statement.
Asked what New Delhi would bring to the table in Jeddah, Madishetty said it is likely India will play the role of an “observer”. “Verma’s attendance suggests to me that India will play the role of an observer in this upcoming meeting, just like it did at (the peace meeting in) Copenhagen (Denmark),” he added.
However, Trigunayat argued that the summit could be less about giving Ukraine “an audience” and rather more about ripples from the Ukraine war — be it rising food or fuel prices — having forced countries to come to the table.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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