Jaishankar defends India’s balanced diplomacy at Munich Security Conference, addresses complexities and advocates for humanitarian approach to Israel-Hamas conflict
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar defended India’s “all-alignment” approach to diplomacy on Saturday, saying that the country should be admired for its ability to foster relationships globally, including with Russia and the United States. However, he advised against labeling India as an “unsentimentally transactional” nation.
Jaishankar made these remarks at the Munich Security Conference in response to a question about whether India’s Western partners approve of its purchase of Russian oil during the Ukraine conflict. Sitting at the panel beside US State Secretary Antony Blinken and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, he said, “If I’m smart enough to have multiple options, you should be admiring me.”
“No, you shouldn’t be criticising. Is that a problem for other people? I don’t think so. We’ve tried to explain what are the different pulls and pressures, which countries have. It’s very hard to have a uni-dimensional relationship,” Jaishankar said in response to the question if New Delhi can pick and choose alliances with countries like Russia and the US.
Not ‘unsentimentally transactional’
Elaborating on the question of the alliance, Jaishankar said India’s approach is not “unsentimentally transactional”. “We get along with people. We believe in things, we share things and we agree on something. I think it’s very important today, not to reduce the entire complexity of our world into very sweeping propositions. I think that era today is behind us. So I agree very much with what Tony said, which is good partners, provide choices. Smart partners, take some of those choices,” he added.