73rd Republic Day: All 5 Central Asian countries to be Chief Guests on January 26

To India's 73rd Republic Day, India is contemplating inviting all five Central Asian countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - as Chief Guests.  People familiar with the developments said that the option of inviting the leaders of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan as chief guests is being pursued. At the same time, they said there is no finality on the guest list yet while not ruling out other options as well.

If it happens, this will be the second time that India will invite so many countries as a grouping. The first time, India had invited leaders of 10-nation influential regional bloc ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) for the Republic Day celebrations in 2018 and all of them attended it.. 

India to host five Central Asian foreign ministers

Prior to that, New Delhi is going to host five Central Asia- India Foreign Ministers meet on December 18 and 19. It is pertinent to mention here that the meeting will be the third of its kind. The first one was held in Uzbekistan’s Samarkand in January 2019 which saw India being represented by the then External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. In 2020, with Jaishankar as the External Minister, the meet happened virtually.

The foreign ministers of India-Central Asia at the 2020 meet had strongly condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and reaffirmed the determination of their countries to combat this menace by destroying terrorist safe-havens, networks, infrastructure and funding channels. They had also underlined the need for every country to ensure that its territory is not used to launch terrorist attacks against other countries.

Thereafter, S Jaishankar Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in October 2021. In his visit, the main aim was to further expand the bilateral ties of India with the Central Asian countries.

India in the past has announced a US $ 1 billion Line of Credit for priority development projects in fields such as connectivity, energy, IT, healthcare, education, agriculture etc.  It has also pitched for Chabahar port in Iran for an easy route for connectivity, something that has garnered support among those countries.

Image: PTI