New Delhi, July 13: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh embarks on Monday on the second leg of what is easily one of his most hectic two-weeks of diplomacy, flying back to Europe for an 18-hour stopover in France two days after returning from Italy, and then heading to Egypt for a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
But unlike last week’s pow-wows with world leaders over the global economic crisis, trade talks and climate change, this trip is more about geopolitical symbolisms: the coming of age of the friendship between Paris and New Delhi and the relevance of a grouping such as NAM, which some critics say is a relic of the Cold War.
Besides, all eyes are on Singh’s scheduled meeting with his Pakistani counterpart, Yousuf Raza Gilani, on the sidelines of the NAM summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
New Delhi is hoping that Islamabad will give an indication of its seriousness to act against the perpetrators of the 26/11 attack on Mumbai before India can consider resuming the composite dialogue between the two countries.
For starters though, Singh will become one of the few world leaders and the first Indian leader to be honoured as the chief guest at France’s Bastille Day parade on the occasion of its national day celebrations on Tuesday.
Singh will not be the only foreign leader at the celebrations. Cambodian President Hun Sen and German President Horst Kohler are also attending the commemoration of the storming of the Bastille fort-prison and the birth of the modern French nation in 1789.
However, President Nicolas Sarkozy chose to honour the Indian PM as the chief guest at the celebrations in what diplomats say is an indication of the deep bonds between the two countries and the significance of India’s lucrative defence and civilian nuclear markets. While Sarkozy was the chief guest at the Republic Day parade last year, president Jacques Chirac was honoured similarly in 1998.
In yet another first, about 400 Indian soldiers from the Army, Navy and Air Force will march down the Champs-Elysees avenue in Paris in the French national parade to commemorate Indian soldiers fighting on the side of the allies in the two world wars.
The 15th NAM summit is expected to see India trying to do a fine balancing act between its role as an emerging Asian power which enjoys a new friendship with the US and its decades-old commitment to non-alignment, south-south cooperation and the stress on a multipolar world amid the economic crisis.
Indian officials say the summit takes place at a crucial juncture as the developing world, which accounts for a bulk of the grouping, faces the greatest impact of the global economic crisis even though its origins are in the developed nations. The summit, as a result, hopes to forge unity and voice its opinion to help resolve the crisis.
–Agencies