By IANS,
New Delhi : Days after taking over as foreign minister, Salman Khurshid is poised for two days of intense diplomacy with virtually back-to-back meetings with the foreign ministers of Iran, Sri Lanka, Oman, Kenya, Madagascar and the Seychelles.
The meetings with the foreign ministers of African littoral states like Kenya, Madagascar and Seychelles Thursday will focus on bolstering anti-piracy cooperation and maritime security, informed sources said.
These meetings will also review the developmental cooperation in a range of projects both bilaterally as well as within the framework of the India-Africa Forum Summit process.
On Friday, Khurshid will hold bilateral talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi that will focus on issues like payments for Iranian oil imports, boosting Indian exports to address trade imbalance and closer cooperation between the two countries in Afghanistan.
During talks with his Sri Lankan counterpart Gamini Peiris, Khurshid is expected to push for fast-tracking political solution to the decades-old ethnic dispute in the island nation, a source of much concern in India. Peiris is expected to update India on steps the taken by the Sri Lankan government for rehabilitating Tamils displaced by the war with the LTTE that ended over three years ago.
Issues of maritime security and expanding economic ties will be common themes that will cut across all these meetings.
Besides bilateral meetings, Khurshid will addresses the council of ministers of the 19-member Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC), a multilateral regional body that has acquired an added salience in view of the growing geo-strategic importance of the Indian