India will participate in all important summits that promote the agenda of global peace, security and development, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said while referring to invitations to him to attend the G-7 meeting and the Ukraine peace summit next month. In a recent interview to PTI, the prime minister said India will “resonate the voice of the Global South” at these summits to shape the global discourse and advance the vision for a prosperous and peaceful world. Italy is hosting the G-7 Summit meeting from June 13-15, while the Ukraine peace summit will be held in Switzerland from June 15-16. The invitations extended to India to attend the summits were an acknowledgement of its growing significance and contribution to international affairs.
Both Switzerland and Ukraine are eager to have India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi participate in this summit. The assumption, of course, is that Modi will return to power for a third term when the elections conclude in June 2024. Although India has not made any formal commitment, the pressure from Europe is likely to mount for India to join the peace effort. Since Modi is expected to attend the G7 summit in Italy from June 13 to 15 as a special invitee, it makes it easier for him to schedule a visit to Switzerland. Ukraine had sought India to play a constructive role in dealing with Russia. India too had said it would do whatever was possible to find a solution to the conflict.
Earlier in March when Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had visited New Delhi, he met his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar and urged him to attend the summit to which Moscow was not invited. The Ukrainian foreign minister’s two-day visit to India on March 28-29 comes amid efforts to seek a peaceful resolution to the more than two-year-old Russia-Ukraine conflict. Notably, nearly a week before Kuleba’s visit to New Delhi, Modi on March 20 held separate conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy and asserted that dialogue and diplomacy were the way forward for the resolution of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Modi had recently spoken to Putin over the telephone to congratulate him for winning a fifth term in office in the recent elections and followed it up with a phone call to Zelenskyy to convey India’s “consistent support” for all efforts for peace and bringing an early end to the ongoing conflict. Even the Ukrainian president said that it would be important for New Delhi to attend the peace summit in Switzerland. India has been maintaining that the conflict in Ukraine must be resolved through dialogue and diplomacy. The invitation to India to participate in the Ukraine peace summit highlights the West’s recognition of the importance of drawing New Delhi into the diplomatic efforts to end the war in the heart of Europe that has entered the third year.
