NSA Doval will meet PM Sunak: In a major development, the Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval On Saturday, he will hold key talks with the UK’s top leadership, including his counterpart Sir Tim Barrow. Notably, this comes almost five days after Doval met with his US counterpart Jake Sullivan on the first high-level dialogue on the Initiative for Critical and Emerging Technologies (ICET).
According to the microblogging post of the Indian High Commission in London, NSA Doval will also meet Indian-origin UK Premier Rishi Sunak at the Center of UK Government. It said that India has always maintained a valuable partnership in trade, defense and other research and development and added that it would like to continue the same momentum.
“A special gesture by Prime Minister @rishisunak to briefly join the India UK NSA dialogue between Sir Tim Barrow and Mr Doval @cabinetofficeuk, Attach great importance to PM’s assurance of his government’s full support to deepen strategic partnership in trade, defense and S&T. India in Britain tweeted on Saturday, looking forward to Sir Tim’s visit to India soon.
India-UK Relations
Notably, earlier in September last year, Barrow was selected to serve as the UK’s National Security Adviser. According to the UK government’s official website, Barrow was once Political Director and Second Permanent Under-Secretary of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). The relationship between India and the UK is often described as a living bridge, a dynamic economic force of people, businesses and ideas.
India and the United Kingdom (UK) share a comprehensive strategic partnership with each other. Both the countries have also completed six rounds of talks for the trade deal and the next round will start soon. Notably, India and the UK started talks for a Free Trade Agreement between the two countries in January 2022. The UK-India Free Trade Agreement is a great advance. Although trade currently stands at £29.6 billion, India is only the UK’s 12th largest trading partner.