Saudi minister visits India unannounced amid tensions with Pakistan; Jaishankar shares ‘counter terrorism perspective’

Amid the escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, Saudi Arabia’s minister of state for foreign affairs Adel al-Jubeir arrived in New Delhi on an unannounced visit and met external affairs minister S Jaishankar on Thursday.

Later, Jaishankar posted about the meeting with the Saudi leader saying, “A good meeting with @AdelAljubeir, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of Saudi Arabia this morning”

He added, “Shared India’s perspectives on firmly countering terrorism,” refering to the India’s military strikes on Wednesday that targeted terrorist infrastructure at nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

The Saudi minister’s meeting with Jaishankar came hours after Iran’s foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, flew into New Delhi late on Wednesday for a previously scheduled visit to co-chair a meeting of the bilateral joint commission with Jaishankar.

Centre adressing all-party meeting

Meanwhile, the government is currently adressing an all-party meeting on the success of "Operation Sindoor" and its aftermath, as top government functionaries and opposition leaders met for a second time in a fortnight amid rising tensions between neighbours.

Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, S Jaishankar, J P Nadda and Nirmala Sitharaman represented the government, while Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge from the Congress, Sandip Bandyopadhyay of the Trinamool Congress and DMK's T R Baalu were among the leading opposition figures in the meeting.

Singh is chairing the meeting.

Other opposition leaders included Ram Gopal Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, Sanjay Singh of the AAP, Shiv Sena (UBT)'s Sanjay Raut, NCP (SP)'s Supriya Sule, BJD's Sasmit Patra and CPI(M)'s John Brittas.

India's millitary strikes in Pakistan were aimed at avenging the victims of the Pahalgam attack and eliminating key Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) leaders and camps involved in planning attacks on Indian soil. The Pakistani military said the strikes killed 26 people and injured 46 others.

Since Pahalgam attack, India had unveiled a range of punitive diplomatic, economic, and political measures, including the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, over “cross-border linkages” to the Pahalgam massacre.

(With agency inputs)