Jeddah [Saudi Arabia], April 22 (ANI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi's first visit to Jeddah holds a cultural significance as Jeddah has served as the port of connectivity for pilgrims who arrive in the Kingdom for Hajj and Umrah, said Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Yemen Suhel Ajaz Khan.

PM Modi's visit to Jeddah also holds importance as it is crucial for India-Saudi Arabia connectivity.

'Prime Minister Modi's previous two visits have been to Riyadh so that it would be his first visit to Jeddah. Jeddah has a special significance in the connectivity between India and Saudi Arabia because, for centuries, Jeddah has been the port for our pilgrims who come for Umra and Hajj to Saudi Arabia. Jeddah has been the port of trade connectivity between India and Saudi Arabia. So this is a very, very significant place in terms of connectivity,' he told ANI.

Khan added that the defence partnership between both nations is strong, and it would most certainly find a place in the discussions.

'Our defence and security partnership is powerful. We have a bilateral defence cooperation MOU from 2014. Under this, various activities are taking place. As you know, in the last few years, we all organised the naval exercises and land forces exercises, and we are looking at another edition of the naval exercises shortly. Definitely, defence cooperation will be a part of the agenda, and our defence partnership will certainly get impetus during this visit,' the Indian ambassador said.

Amid the ongoing talks being held in Riyadh between the US and Russia, Khan said that Saudi Arabia has played a significant role. Israel-Gaza crisis and the Russia-Ukraine conflict would be a part of the discussion between PM Modi and the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Indian ambassador told ANI.

'When both the leaders meet, they will certainly discuss all the issues, including the issues of regional importance and global importance. Saudi Arabia has been the place for talks on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Not only now, but even in 2023, they organised two rounds of talks at the National Security Adviser levels and recently also they again became a venue for the talks, so they play a very important role. They also play a very important role in the regional geopolitical situation. And I'm sure both the leaders will discuss all these issues,' he said.

Talking to ANI on the economic cooperation between the two countries, the Indian envoy said that a lot of initiatives under the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor is under talks.

'Our economic partnership is very strong, and our trade has been increasing. In fact, India's exports to Saudi Arabia have almost doubled in the last four years, and there's a lot of emphasis on facilitating the investments. In fact, today only, there was a high-level task force meeting on investment which met in Riyadh, and this is a task force which was formed after the 2023 visit of the Crown Prince to India... So definitely economic partnership is one of the fulcrums of our relationship and a lot of emphasis has been given to it. As far as IMEC is concerned, we are working closely with Saudi Arabia on a number of initiatives. One of the most important initiatives where we have made a lot of progress is the electric grid connectivity. It is a very ambitious programme,' he said.

'The idea is that we connect the electric grids of both the countries so that we benefit from opportunities in the renewable and clean energy in both the countries, and we are currently undertaking feasibility studies, so a lot of progress has taken place there. As part of the IMEC, we will work with Saudi Arabia and other regional partners on dimensions like multimodal logistic connectivity, data connectivity, and other elements of IMEC. So IMEC is very important. It is not one project, it is vision and it will have many, many projects and many other verticals in times to come,' he added. (ANI)