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Iran foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian arrived in India
to a “warm welcome” to hold talks with external affairs minister S
Jaishankar amid widespread anger in West Asian countries over
controversial remarks on Prophet Mohammad made by two BJP leaders,
against whom party has taken action. Abdollahian is on a three-day
visit with an aim to further enhance bilateral ties, Trend reports citing
Hindustan
Times.
“Foreign Minister of Iran, Dr. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian arrives
to a warm welcome in India. The visit will further boost our deep
historical ties and partnership,” Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson for
the ministry of external affairs, wrote on Twitter.
Jaishankar and Abdollahian will hold talks at 1 pm on Wednesday.
The Iranian minister will travel to Mumbai and Hyderabad after
concluding his engagements in New Delhi.
Abdollahian’s is the first visit to India by a senior minister
of a member nation of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation after
the controversial remarks on the Prophet triggered outrage in the
Arab world and soon spread to other Muslim-majority countries. His
visit comes two days after Iran joined Arab nations in summoning
the Indian envoys to lodge protest against the remarks by BJP
spokesperson Nupur Sharma and party’s Delhi media cell head Naveen
Kumar Jindal.
Since then, over a dozen countries including Saudi Arabia,
United Arab Emirates (UAE), Indonesia, Pakistan, Afghanistan,
Jordan, Bahrain, Maldives, Malaysia, Oman, Iraq and Libya have
denounced the comments.
The Indian embassies in Qatar and Kuwait responded to the
objection saying the comments “made by fringe elements” do not
reflect the views of the government, highlighting that action was
taken against the two persons by “relevant bodies”.
India and Iran have been jointly focusing on improving
connectivity between South East Asia and Central Asia. Located in
the Sistan-Balochistan province on Iran’s southern coast, Chabahar
Port is expected to become a key regional transit hub. It is being
developed by India, Iran and Afghanistan to boost connectivity and
trade ties.
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