Iran Press/ Asia: Brigadier General Mohammed Reza Gharaei Ashtiyani is in New Delhi to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Defence Ministers’ Meeting scheduled to take place on Friday.
Gharaei Ashtiyani and Rajnath Singh reviewed the status of bilateral defense cooperation and exchanged views on regional security issues during their talks, a statement by the Indian defense ministry announced.
The statement noted that they also discussed peace and security in Afghanistan.
Further, the two delegates also held talks on the “development of the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a Moscow-backed initiative that strives to achieve seamless connectivity from Russia to Iran and India through Central Asia.
The statement emphasized that the INSTC will “ease logistic problems to Afghanistan and other countries in Central Asia”.
New Delhi has redoubled efforts to connect the port of Chabahar, located on Iran’s Gulf of Oman coast, to the INSTC. India is currently developing the Shahid Beheshti terminal of the Chabahar port.
A trilateral agreement among Iran, India, and Afghanistan on the ‘Establishment of International Transport and Transit Corridors’ to facilitate the movement of goods between India and Central Asian states was signed in 2016.
New Delhi transported around 75,000 metric tonnes of wheat to Afghanistan in 2020 through the Chabahar port.
The Indian defense ministry has said that regional peace and security, counter-terrorism efforts within SCO, and an “effective multilateralism” will be the key areas of discussion during the SCO meeting on Friday.
“India considers SCO as an important regional group to promote multilateral, political, security, economic and people-to-people interactions in the region,” it stated.
It said that New Delhi has been making efforts to “enhance interoperability” among SCO states in order to achieve the goals of the organization. New Delhi is the current chair of the SCO.
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