External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday held extensive discussions on various issues with his French counterpart Hon Noel Barrot and the two sides agreed to increase bilateral cooperation in areas such as defense, space and civil-nuclear alliances.
Jaishankar appreciated France for strongly condemning the terrorist attack on April 22 in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir and thanked Paris for “firm support” against India’s right to defend against terrorism.
Addressing a joint press conference in Marsile after the meeting, he underlined that in the last few years, “a very high -level trust” has been formed between India and France.
Jaishankar said that the two sides also discussed global and regional issues like the Indian subcontinent status, Ukraine conflict, West Asia and Hind-Pacific. He said, “It has always been our attitude that this is not an era where differences should be resolved through war. We believe that dialogue and diplomacy is the answer to this … There is not going to be a solution from the battlefield, this has always been our stand. We believe that direct interaction between the concerned parties is most important. ”
Jaishankar said that the two sides “discussed” various topics “including” defense, civil nuclear power, space, steps against terrorism, mutual relations, innovation, artificial intelligence (AI), technology “.”
In the context of the Indo-Pacific region, he said that the two countries have a shared view of such independent and open Hind-Pacific region, where international law and maritime security is maintained. Jaishankar said, “We discussed joint efforts to cooperate to promote these objectives.