New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the strategic partnership between India and Germany has emerged as a strong anchor at a time when the world is faced with tensions, conflicts and uncertainty.
Participating in the Seventh Inter-Governmental Consultations with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Modi said India-Germany ties were a transformational partnership of two capable and strong democracies and not a transactional relationship.
“The world is passing through times of tensions, conflicts and uncertainty. In the Indo-Pacific region, there are serious concerns about the rule of law and freedom of navigation. In times like this, the strategic partnership between India and Germany has emerged as a strong anchor,” Modi said.
Underlining growing relations between India and Germany, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said that he was happy to expand and elevate the strategic partnership between the two countries during German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s India visit.
“In the last IGC in Berlin in 2022, we made important decisions for our bilateral cooperation. In two years, there has been encouraging progress in various sectors of our strategic relations. Increasing cooperation in areas like defence, technology, energy, green and sustainable development have become symbols of mutual trust,” the Prime Minister added.
Highlighting how the world is going through an era of conflicts, PM Modi said there are serious concerns regarding the rule of law and freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific Region. “In a time like this, a strategic partnership between India and Germany has emerged as a strong anchor,” he added.
The Prime Minister further said India-Germany relations are not “transactional” in nature but rather transformational ties between the two democracies. “In this regard, we welcome the Focus on India Strategy issued by you…I am delighted that to expand and elevate our partnership, we are taking several new and important initiatives and moving from Whole of Government to an approach of Whole of Nation,” he said.
Scholz’s India visit comes less than a month after the German Cabinet adopted the key strategic document Focus on India, which sheds light on the future direction of bilateral relations with India. Earlier this month, the German Government said that it wants to raise the strategic partnership that has underpinned its relationship with India since 2000 to a new level.
Scholz arrived in Delhi late on Thursday as part of his three-day official visit to the country. Welcoming Scholz to India, Modi praised the progress made in India-Germany ties in recent years. As both sides co-chaired the seventh Intergovernmental Consultations (IGC) at Hyderabad House, Modi said that increasing cooperation in areas like defence and technology has emerged as a sign of “mutual trust” between the two strategic partners.
