New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said that India is trying to ensure that its ties with all nations advance further without exclusivity.
“Whether it is the US, Europe, Russia, or Japan, we are trying to ensure that all these ties advance without seeking exclusivity,” he said in an address at Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Dominican Republic.
He was on a visit to Dominican Republic from April 27 to 29.
The Union Minister noted that China falls in a somewhat different category due to the boundary dispute and the currently abnormal nature of the ties with that country.
That is a result of a violation of agreements regarding border management by them, he added.
While elaborating on India’s priority of cooperating with its neighbours, Jaishankar said that while India has seen a dramatic expansion in connectivity, contacts, in cooperation across the region, the exception to this has been Pakistan, in view of the cross-border terrorism that it supports.
“To the north, India has been similarly pursuing a strategy of connecting to Central Asia more effectively and this has taken the form of structured engagements across multiple domains.
“These concentric circles of priority give you a conceptual sense of Indian diplomacy and one that we have pursued very assiduously over the last decade. But at a higher level, we are also practising the approach of engaging all significant centres of power, such multi-alignment reflects the reality of multi-polarity,” he further noted.
Jaishankar also mentioned that each engagement has its own particular weight and focus.
He said the rise of China and India in a parallel timeframe is also not without its competitive aspects.
The Dominican Republic was the last stop of Jaishankar’s four-nation tour of North and South America.
As part of the trip, he also visited Guyana, Panama and Colombia.