US, India, and UAE NSAs meet with Crown Prince Salman

The crucial meeting was aimed at cementing India and US relationship with the Sunni world and deepening cooperation with Middle-East kingdoms

Updated on: May 8, 2023, 08:13:25 IST

By Shishir Gupta

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Countering Chinese growing footprint in the Middle-East. National Security Advisors of US, India, UAE met with Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia Crown Prince and Prime Minister, on Sunday to cement engagement of India with the region and the US.

US NSA Jake Sullivan with Indian NSA Ajit Doval (HT File)

Watch: NSA Ajit Doval meets Saudi Prince to 'rein in' Chinese footprints in region | Key Details

The most significant meeting, after China brokered peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran on March 10, took place in Saudi Arabia with an objective of further expanding “shared vision of a more secure and prosperous Middle east region interconnected with India and the World.”

The meeting was attended by US NSA Jake Sullivan, Indian NSA Ajit Doval, UAE NSA Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan with Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman playing the gracious host.

While New Delhi is tight-lipped about the meeting, US NSA Sullivan had a bilateral meeting with NSA Doval to review decisions taken in their last meeting on February 1 and meet again on the margins of the QUAD summit in Sydney in Australia on May 24. US NSA had bilateral meetings with both his Saudi and UAE counterparts in an effort to repair the strained American relations with the Sunni world.

The India-US engagement has stepped up in the run up to the QUAD summit with Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra scheduled to visit Washington for the first ever dialogue on strategic trade on May 11-12 with his US counterparts. This dialogue will help India get high end technology from US companies for “Atmanirbhar Bharat” vision of PM Narendra Modi.

According to the US readout of the crucial Saudi Arabia meeting, Crown Prince Salman and NSA Sullivan reviewed the progress made to consolidate the truce in Yemen. While Sullivan and Doval thanked the Crown Prince for evacuation of their nationals from war hit Sudan, the four delegations agreed to maintain regular consultations and follow-up of matters discussed and decisions taken in the meeting.

Before visiting Saudi Arabia, NSA Doval held bilateral talks in Iran with his counterpart.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More