India-UAE-France hold their maiden trilateral meet

India-UAE-France on Thursday held their maiden trilateral meet to explore potential cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region including in maritime security, blue economy and regional connectivity and food & energy security.

The three sides exchanged perspectives on the Indo-Pacific region and explored the potential areas of trilateral cooperation including Maritime Security, Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR), Blue Economy, Regional Connectivity, Cooperation in Multilateral Fora, Energy and Food Security, Innovation and Startups, Supply Chain Resilience and Cultural and People-to-People Cooperation, officials said, adding, they also discussed the next steps to be taken for furthering trilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region.

The Indian side was led by Sandeep Chakravorty, Joint Secretary (Europe West) and Shri Vipul, Joint Secretary (Gulf), MEA the French side was led by Bertrand Lortholary, Director (Asia and Oceania) and Emmanuel Suquet, Deputy Director (Middle East and North Africa) of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, and the UAE side was led by Ahmed Burhaima, Deputy Director of the Economic and Trade Affairs Department of the UAE Foreign Ministry.


This is second such plurilateral involving India-UAE. India and UAE are also part of I2 U2 (India-Israel-United States of America-UAE). Besides this, India is involved in several other plurilaterals – BRICS, Quad, India-Japan-Australia, India-Australia-France (that would be revived under the new government in Australia) and prospective India-Indonesia-Australia.