India, Thailand hold 10th Joint Commission Meeting; multiple agreements signed
Feb 27, 2024
New Delhi [India], February 27 : India and Thailand signed multiple agreements in the presence of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Thailand's Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara in the national capital on Tuesday.
Prior to this, EAM Jaishankar and his Thailand counterpart also held the 10th India-Thailand Joint Commission meeting in the national capital.
Earlier in the day, Jaishankar welcomed Nukara and said that the Joint Commission meeting would take forward the partnership between the two nations.
Thailand's Deputy PM, Nukara, is on his first official visit to India. He arrived in New Delhi in the early hours of Monday.
During his visit to India, Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara is scheduled to meet Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Tuesday. On February 28, he will depart from India after concluding his four-day official visit.
The 9th India-Thailand Joint Commission Meeting was held in Bangkok on August 17, 2022.
Earlier in the day, Thailand Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Sihasak Phuangketkeow expressed confidence that bilateral ties with India will grow in strength and move towards a strategic partnership that will boost the partnership between the two countries on a regional and global level.
Delivering the lecture on "How Can Thailand and India be Strategic Partners?" organised by the Indian Council of World Affairs, the visiting dignitary noted that there has been a lot of redirection of foreign policy since the Cold War period, when distance between two nations had grown.
Phuangketkeow said, "The fact of the matter was that there was some distance in our relationship because of the Cold War. So the view from Bangkok was not the same as the view from New Delhi. But of course, with the end of the Cold War, a lot has changed. And I think we've seen a lot of realignment of relations."
"We've seen a lot of redirection of foreign policy because of the Cold War. And also, I think it has to do a lot with the changes within India, the reforms in India, the opening up of India. And a lot of it has to do with the changes in my region, the changes in East Asia. And so that has led to closer engagement between India and ASEAN, and India with East Asia," he added.
Both India and Thailand are important regional partners linking South and Southeast Asia. They cooperate closely in the ASEAN, East Asia Summit (EAS) and Bay of Bengal Initiative for MultiSectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) groupings among others.
