PM Modi and Crown Prince MBS to push for Middle-East corridor implementation
With PM Modi and Prince MBS having personal relationship based on mutual trust, India and Saudi Arabia will further cement ties.
Building on G20 momentum, the never-tiring Prime Minister Narendra Modi will today host Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with the objective of turning the Middle-East corridor project into reality and cementing bilateral ties with a rapidly rising West Asian global power.
Even though the Crown Prince is just 38 years old, it was MBS who as the principal architect first approached Bharat for the Middle-East corridor and then roped in UAE and US into the ambitious plan that has the potential of becoming the backbone of global trade.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prince MBS having personal relationship based on mutual trust, India and Saudi Arabia will further cement ties as Riyadh looks to invest in India and is also willing to consider Rupee-Riyal trade in oil exports to Bharat. The two countries have close strategic and security relationships and converge on opposing religious radicalization by pan-Islamic forces like Muslim Brotherhood and terrorist groups like Al Qaeda.
It is due to Crown Prince MBS and PM Modi joint efforts and candid conversations that Pakistan’s leverage on the bilateral equation has been reduced to zero but Islamabad still uses the OIC platform to settle personal scores with Bharat. After becoming Prime Minister in 2014, Narendra Modi made an all- out effort to reach out to Saudi Arabia as the country was the biggest supplier of oil to India and the relationship in the past was looked at through the prism of Pakistan. Crown Prince Salman, on his part, has changed the image of his country through sweeping reforms and empowering of women without giving up on religious beliefs. Under his leadership, Saudi has acquired global heft and today competes with other big Sunni powers in West Asia and plays with both west and China based on its national interest. Even though Saudi Arabia and US were estranged over the “Kashoggi affair”, Washington with NSA Jake Sullivan as points person has rebuilt the relationship after Chinese President Xi Jinping held an Arab summit in Riyadh on December 9, 2022. PM Modi made it a point during the launch of the ME corridor on the side-lines of the G-20 summit to bring Crown Prince MBS and US President Joe Biden together.
After years of systematic building of relationship, Bharat and Saudi Arabia are close trade partners with the Middle-East corridor being the dream project of both countries. Saudi Arabia will be the key investor in the ME corridor project and will fund some 850 kilometers of railroad to Haifa Port via Jordan for the northern leg of the corridor. In fact, Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince MBS’s leadership is asking for the same concessions as UAE with a promise of double the investment in Bharat.
The India and Saudi Arabia relationship today is anchored on strong political and historical bonds rather than mere trade and investment. The two countries share close security and defence cooperation with the intelligence agencies of both the countries in constant touch with each other on a mutual benefit basis. The state visit of Crown Prince Salman, from an Indian perspective, has no less of a billing than the just concluded G-20 summit.
