NEW DELHI: Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar on Monday sought Bahrain\u2019s support in advancing India\u2019s engagement with the Gulf Cooperation Council as he received his Bahraini counterpart, Abdullatif Al-Zayani, in New Delhi.<\/p>\n
Al-Zayani arrived in India on Sunday to co-chair with Jaishankar the fifth session of the India-Bahrain High Joint Commission, which was established in 2018 as the top institutional mechanism to strengthen bilateral relations.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince our last HJC meeting we have made significant progress bilaterally in defense, security, trade and commerce, health, culture and people-to-people ties. But there are new areas such as space, fintech and technology that hold considerable promise for our partnership,\u201d Jaishankar told Al-Zayani in his opening remarks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe look forward to your support for further intensifying India-GCC cooperation,\u201d Jaishankar said.<\/p>\n
India has been pursuing a free trade pact with the GCC for the past two decades. A Framework Agreement on Economic Cooperation was signed in 2004 but two rounds of negotiations \u2014 in 2006 and 2008 \u2014 were inconclusive.<\/p>\n
The GCC\u2019s secretary-general announced at the beginning of 2025 that the bloc was set to start free trade negotiations with India this year.<\/p>\n
The agreement would give India access to a large and affluent market for its goods and also concessions on visas in a region which is second home to some 9 million Indian expat workers.<\/p>\n
Bahrain will host and assume the presidency of the Supreme Council of the GCC at the upcoming summit in Manama next month. The presidency gives it a platform to highlight collective GCC responses and cooperation mechanisms.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe aspire to enhance greater connectivity between India and our broader region,\u201d Al-Zayani said during the meeting with Jaishankar.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn alignment with the high-level commitment from our leadership to this significant partnership, I would like to emphasize Bahrain\u2019s dedication to deepening our relationship with the Republic of India.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement after the HJC meeting, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said it had discussed efforts to strengthen cooperation in the fields of healthcare, including in health services, medical care, clinical research, pharmaceuticals and medical devices.<\/p>\n
During the commission\u2019s previous meeting in Manama last year, India and Bahrain agreed to broaden cooperation in the education sector, with the Indian side inviting more Bahraini students to pursue higher studies at the country\u2019s top institutions.<\/p>\n
Nearly 332,000 Indian nationals live in Bahrain, making up almost a quarter of the country\u2019s 1.5 million population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW DELHI: Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar on Monday sought Bahrain\u2019s support in advancing India\u2019s engagement with the Gulf Cooperation Council as he received his Bahraini counterpart, Abdullatif Al-Zayani, in New Delhi. Al-Zayani arrived in India on Sunday to co-chair with Jaishankar the fifth session of the India-Bahrain High Joint Commission, which was established in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":89088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89089,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89065\/revisions\/89089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}