Though the French Foreign Minister laurent Fabius arrived in New Delhi on Thursday for consultations on COP21 meet, ISIS terror and India’s security concerns will also form important part of discussions with the Indian Government on Friday.
Fabius’ visit comes at a time when France witnessed one of the deadliest terror attacks in Paris by ISIS. According to External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup, since India has a robust co-operation on several issues and a strategic partnership with France the discussions during Fabius’ meeting with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will certainly revolve around how the two countries can step up co-operation in counter terrorism.
“France is a longstanding and trusted strategic partner of India and during the visit of Fabius, there will be discussions on latest attacks in Paris and how India and France can further step up their mutual cooperation in the area of combating terrorism,” Swarup said.
He added that in the face of grave threat from ISIS, India has urged global cooperation on terrorism, which includes sharing of crucial data and Intelligence information with each other besides enhancing capabilities. “Terrorism has remained focus area of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign visits and he has urged all countries to join hands to fight terrorism,” Swarup added.
Fabius will also have deliberations with Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on the preparations in the run up to Paris climate summit. He will hold meeting with Minister for Renewable Energy Piyush Goyal over an international solar alliance proposed by India. Fabius will be accompanied by laurence Tubiana, ambassador for climate change negotiations and special representative for Conference of Parties (COP21) or the Paris summit next month. Their visit constitutes the first leg of the French Minister’s tour for holding a series of consultations in South Africa, Brazil and Canada to gear up preparations for the UN climate summit.
The climate conference is scheduled to take place in Paris from November 30 to December 11 in which Modi will also be attending.
France is the host and chair of COP21 and it has expressed commitment to the role of an impartial facilitator for forging an ambitious international agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius and for supporting adaptation to climate change impacts.
India is pushing forward for finances and technology worth $100 billion to be made available to developing countries to pursue clean energy as a part of grand alliance of solar-rich nations.