Strong alliances do not enhance India's global standing, loose associations favourable, says Jaishankar in S. Korea
Jaishankar on Tuesday said strong alliances do not enhance a country's global standing while, on the contrary, India had a favourable result from loose or issue-based alliances. «Today, we see India in many ways as playing a useful role as a kind of bridging country which can contribute and address problems. And I think unfortunately the state of the world requires such services,» the minister said in response to a question following his address to the Korea National Diplomatic Academy here.
Jaishankar's address was a part of the first leg of his four-day visit to South Korea and Japan.
«I don't agree that strong alliances enhance global standing and lose alliances detract. At the beginning of our presidency of the G20, people were worried whether we would be able to get an agreement at the end of it and we had two problems — the Ukraine conflict and the issue of development. A lot of Global South had concerns. We have different ties to one group, I think it would have been difficult to get the G20 to come around had it not been such a case,» the minister said.
The minister said India's objective was to be a «Vishwamitra» — being a friend of the world, making as many relationships and even friendships as possible.
«I think if you like the world, you have more like-minded countries. So we like the world. We look at different parts of the world and the instinct for us is to find something common there,» Jaishankar said.
«If you want to have the optimal existence, you want to be on good terms with as many
