India, Iran firmly stand with Palestine

New Delhi, Jan 15: India and Iran firmly backed Palestine with India asserting its long standing support for a two-state solution, where the Palestinian people are able to live freely in an independent country within secure borders.

In a joint press statement issued by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, with Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran Dr. Amir-Abdollahian, Jaishankar said, “ I had today, a very useful exchange of views with my dear colleague Dr Amir-Abdollahian. We were able to review all aspects of our bilateral engagement quite comprehensively and exchange thoughts on some pressing global and regional issues. I will have an opportunity to meet His Excellency President Raisi later today. I will be conveying Prime Minister Modi's warm greetings to him.”

“I will also meet the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, whom we will have the pleasure of hosting in India in a few days. Earlier this morning, I met with the Minister of Roads and Urban development, Minister Mehrdad Bazrpash. At the outset, let me underline that this visit gave me an opportunity to personally convey our condolences to my counterpart on the recent terrorist attack in Kerman. Prime Minister Modi has written to President Raisi in this regard as well.”

“My discussions today benefited from the fact that our countries have maintained a regular momentum of high-level interactions. Prime Minister Modi and President Raisi recently met at Johannesburg. Our leaders have been in frequent touch through letters and phone. I also personally maintained regular contact with Dr. Abdollahian in recent days. We also held our Foreign Office Consultations just two months back. Today, due to the regularity of these exchanges and the guidance provided by our leadership, there is a good basis to expand substantive cooperation in a variety of areas. The Foreign Minister and I specifically focused on its political and economic aspects. But naturally, there were other domains as well.”

“We also exchanged perspectives and assessments on certain regional and global issues and developments. Both of us are concerned about the recent events in West Asia, which some call Middle East; and we emphasised the importance of preventing further escalation of violence and hostilities. We will be continuing further discussions over lunch.

As you all know, India has a long-standing and uncompromising position against terrorism in all forms and manifestations. This remains so very much. At the same time, we strongly believe that it is imperative to avoid loss of civilian life in any conflict situation,” the statement said.

“The deeply concerning situation in Gaza was naturally a subject of our discussions. The loss of civilian lives, especially that of women and children was our primary focus. There is a visible humanitarian crisis that needs to be addressed and the creation of sustainable humanitarian corridors is the need of the day. We welcome the international community’s efforts in that direction. India itself has delivered shipments of relief material to Gaza and contributed to the UNRWA. On the issue of Palestine, let me reiterate India’s long standing support for a two-state solution, where the Palestinian people are able to live freely in an independent country within secure borders. I stressed on the need for all parties to avoid provocative and escalatory actions, and to facilitate movement towards dialogue and diplomacy.”