India strategic ally of all central Asian countries: Kyrgyzstan minister

Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar met with five foreign ministers to discuss trade, connectivity and Afghanistan at the India-Central Asia Dialogue.

Highlighting that India and Central Asian countries share deep-rooted historical relations, Kyrgyzstan Foreign Minister Ruslan Kazakbaev on Sunday said that New Delhi is the strategic partner of all countries in the region.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar (4L) with the Foreign Ministers of Central Asian countries in a group photo at the third meeting of the two-day India-Central Asia Dialogue. (ANI)

In his opening remarks at the 3rd meeting of the India-Central Asia Dialogue here, Kazakbaev said his country is very grateful for having diplomatic relations with India.

"I'm very happy to say that we are having good relations and talks with India in the Central Asia region, which provides the dynamics of relations," he said, adding that dialogues between participating countries in such meetings are fruitful.

Kyrgyzstan Foreign Minister said that being in Central Asia, at the center of the world, it has very warm relations with the Indian side and both share deep-rooted historical relations.

"Today, India is the strategical partner for all countries of Central Asia and we have like political and economic, cultural relations and partnership and cooperation," he said.

While recalling the recent talks on Afghanistan, Kazakbaev said a "special place of our relations is security and we are happy that we had recently talked about Afghanistan about the safety and security of the region."

"We are ready to support and collaborate in all the measurements to make this region safer. And we wish that further also we would develop our relations," he said.

Jaishankar is hosting the third meeting of the India-Central Asia Dialogue aiming to further strengthen ties between the member countries, with a particular focus on trade, connectivity and development cooperation.

This dialogue is seeing the participation from Foreign Ministers of Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. It assumes importance due to the ongoing humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.

Since the Taliban's takeover of the country, Jaishankar has met several of the participating ministers for talks focusing on the issues concerning the troubled country.