Delhi. India will host the second meeting of India-Arab foreign ministers here on Saturday in which representatives of all 22 Arab countries will participate. The Ministry of External Affairs said here on Thursday that this meeting will be co-chaired by India and the United Arab Emirates. Foreign ministers of Arab League member countries and Secretary General of the Arab League will participate in it. The second meeting of the two sides is taking place after a gap of ten years.

The first meeting was held in Bahrain in 2016. During the first meeting, the ministers had identified five priority areas of cooperation – economy, energy, education, media and culture – and proposed various activities in these areas. The upcoming meeting is expected to take forward the existing cooperation and further strengthen and broaden the India-Arab partnership.

The India-Arab Foreign Ministers’ Meeting is the highest institutional arrangement to advance the partnership between India and Arab countries. This partnership was formalized in March 2002, when a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between India and the Arab League to institutionalize the dialogue process.

Subsequently, during the visit of the then Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa to India in December 2008, a Memorandum of Cooperation was signed to establish the Forum on Arab-India Cooperation, which was revised in 2013 with the aim of strengthening its structural arrangements. India is an observer in the Arab League, a pan-Arab organization with 22 member states.

This will be the first time that India will host the India-Arab Foreign Ministers’ meeting. This meeting will be attended by all 22 Arab countries, who will be represented by Foreign Ministers, other Ministers, Ministers of State, senior officials and the Arab League Secretariat. Before the meeting, the fourth meeting of India-Arab senior officials will be held on Friday.

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