India and the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday signed an agreement on a trade corridor that aims to connect Europe with India through parts of the Middle East by sea and rail, an ambitious plan backed by the U.S. and the European Union.
The announcement of the framework agreement, reached during a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Gulf state, was released in a statement by the Indian foreign ministry, although few details on what the sides had agreed on were made public.
The corridor, announced last September on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi, aims to extend from India across the Arabian Sea to the United Arab Emirates and through Saudi Arabia before connecting through Jordan and Israel to Europe.
The ministry’s statement, however, made no mention of any country apart from India and the UAE, a regional Gulf Arab power, whose ties are built on over a century of trade links.
The agreement on the India-Middle East Economic Corridor comes amid the more than four-month war in Gaza that has derailed U.S.-backed plans to further integrate Israel with its Arab neighbours. Saudi Arabia has halted normalisation plans.
The UAE foreign ministry did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on details of the agreement. Modi met with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan, who the Indian leader often refers to as his brother. Source: Reuters
