Kuwait and India share principles of non-interference in other countries’ affairs: Kuwaiti envoy to India
The Government of Kuwait has assured us that they are deeply committed to friendly relations with India, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said
By IAR Desk
Commending the historical relationship between Kuwait and India, Kuwait’s Ambassador to India Jassem al-Najem on Sunday, April 26th, said that both countries were always seeking to ‘develop them in political and economic domain’.
‘Kuwait and India share many principles in their foreign policies, like respecting UN Charter, non-interference in other countries’ affairs and respecting sovereignty of nations, the ambassador said in a press statement to the Kuwaiti News Agency KUNA.
Al-Najjem also said Kuwait and India were ‘cooperating and coordinating to step up the fight against the novel coronavirus Covid-19’.
Both countries were scheduled to hold a joint committee meeting earlier this year which had to be cancelled because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The envoy’s statement came in the wake of a Kuwait Member of Parliament’s appeal to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to intervene in India to take up the cause of alleged discrimination and Islamophobia in the country.
In a statement released on Monday in Arabic, the General Secretariat of the Kuwait Council of Ministers expressed its “deep concern” about the treatment of Indian Muslims.
Abdullah al-Shoreka, a minister in Kuwait’s Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, tweeted that it was time for Muslims to speak up against the persecution of fellow Muslims in India.
Last week a number of prominent personalities across the Gulf region had spoken out against alleged discrimination and violence against Muslims in India on their social media handles. Some of these anti-India handles were traced to Pakistan’s twitter war against India.
On Monday evening, India’s Ministry of External Affairs released a statement in response to these reports.
“The Government of Kuwait has assured us that they are deeply committed to friendly relations with India. They also do not support any interference in the internal affairs of India,” the statement said.
Mr. Anurag Shrivastava, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs also reminded that on the request of Kuwait, India recently deployed a Rapid Response Team there to assist the country in its fight against corona virus. During its two week stay in Kuwait, the team rendered valuable medical assistance in testing and treatment of afflicted persons and training their personnel.
On April 11, India had sent a rapid response team comprising 15 doctors and health care professionals to Kuwait on Saturday, to assist the Kuwait government in its fight against coronavirus. The team had been deputed at the request of the government of the State of Kuwait.
Indians constitute the largest group of expatriates with an estimated population of about ten lakhs in the State of Kuwait.
