India, UAE and France hold first trilateral ministerial meeting in US

What’s in News?

India, the UAE and France have held their first trilateral ministerial meeting on the sidelines of a U.N. General Assembly session in USA.

United Nations General Assembly Session (UNGA Session):

UNGA:

• The UN General Assembly (UNGA) is the main policy-making organ of the Organization.
• Comprising all Member States, it provides a unique forum for multilateral discussion of the full spectrum of international issues covered by the Charter of the United Nations.
• It was created in 1945.
• It meets from September to December every year, and then again between January and August.
• Each of the 193 Member States of the United Nations has an equal vote.
• The UNGA also makes key decisions for the UN, including:

1. appointing the Secretary-General on the recommendation of the Security Council
2. electing the non-permanent members of the Security Council
3. approving the UN budget

77^th U.N.General Assembly Session:

• The theme for the 77th session is “A watershed moment: transformative solutions to interlocking challenges,” which emerges from the recognition that the world is at a critical moment due to “complex and interconnected crises.
• The key issues that India will be focusing on during the high-level UN General Assembly session are counter-terrorism, peacekeeping, reformed multilaterism, climate action and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines.
• The five S’s: Samman (Respect), Samvad (Dialogue), Sahyog (Cooperation), Shanti (Peace) and Samriddhi (Prosperity), laid out by Prime Minister will be the “guiding light” in India’s approach to the UNGA.

News Highlights:

• This was the first ministerial-level meeting of the India, the UAE and France trilateral.
• The three countries, while different, are strategic partners to one another and discussions focussed on areas of commonalities and on working out how to specify and concretise these commonalities going forward.
• The three countries discussed cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, where India sees France as an indispensable partner, with focus on maritime security, regional connectivity, energy and food security and supply chain resilience.
• The three countries had in July 2022, held the inaugural meeting of the ‘focal points’ of the India-France-UAE Trilateral Framework and urged officials to prepare an agreed roadmap for cooperation.
• As part of their cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, India and France are working towards the establishment of an Indo-Pacific Trilateral Development Cooperation Fund to support India-based innovators and startups in taking their innovations to third countries.

Way Forward:

• Such plurilateral meetings signify a new and more contemporary way of doing diplomacy.
• Quad (Australia, India, Japan, US), I2U2 (India, Israel, United Arab Emirates and United States), trilateral between India, France and Australia as forums are emerging as effective ways of finding a common agenda.
• Now, countries which are not neighbours or next to each other in a region, but have certain common interests, are working with each other.