Bharat Rakshak

vinod wrote:Anyone following Lebanon. It seems they are on precipice. It will have a big impact across the area.

The thing is that the Iranians were supplying oil products and construction materials to Stepanakert / Khankendi (the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh). Azerbaijan has blocked their trading routes, while two Iranian drivers have been detained. This caused a diplomatic scandal. The Iranians responded by mobilizing troops across the Araz River, near the border with Azerbaijan under the pretext of military exercises.

In the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict Turkey sides with Azerbaijan, while Iran, as a counterweight, supports Armenia. As the Iranians were deploying their troops and heavy equipment on Azerbaijan's borders, [joint] military exercises of Baku's allies Turkey and Pakistan were held on Azerbaijani territory along with the country's military.

However, now the Azerbaijani-Iranian population, which resides on the Iranian bank of the Araz River may become involved in this confrontation. The point is that during the 2020 war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Iranian Azeris were quite active in supporting Azerbaijan's offensive. Inter alia, they prevented Russian military equipment, which was transported via Iranian trailers, from entering into Armenia. Such events came as surprise to all the parties in the region, including Armenia, Russia and the Iranian leadership, and even prompted several Iranian officials to make pro-Azerbaijani statements.

Iran's stance on Azerbaijan as well as the support that Tehran provides to Yerevan are of serious concern to Iranian Azerbaijanis. Expressing their protest through social media, the southern Azeris submitted an ultimatum to Tehran's authorities that expires September 27 (which is the first anniversary of the beginning Second Karabakh War). They demand a change in Iran's policy towards Azerbaijan. Reportedly, if this does not happen, Azeris, who constitute a significant part of Iran's population will rise up against the authorities, and initiate mass protest actions. Azerbaijani activists residing in Iran claim their constant readiness for protests.

Sayman Aruz, head of the South Literature Department of the Azerbaijan Writers' Union, said, "There are our ancestral lands on the territory of Iran and our people's claim to these lands as a moral historical birthright originating is obvious. Forty-five million of our compatriots are living in Iran, we share the same history, language, culture... It would be naive to believe that Iran will makes its peace with this and stand side by side with Azerbaijan as a true friend. Iranian-Azerbaijani friendship can never be lasting in these circumstances."

Perhaps the author of the aforementioned quotation exaggerates the number of Azeris residing in 83 million-strong Iran (there are claims that there are 20-30 million Azeris in Iran). Nevertheless, considering the Azerbaijani population in Iran one can hardly call them a "national minority." Furthermore, there are 10-12 million Kurds, 4 million Arabs, 2 million Baluchis, etc., in the Islamic Republic. National minorities constitute about half of Iran's population.

The socio-economic and socio-political situation in Iran remains precarious after the summer protests and strikes. President Ebrahim Raisi, who came to office on 3 August 2021, was not actually elected but appointed via a fake election, his legitimacy is in doubt.

Meanwhile, at least half of the country's population lives below the poverty line. When this was compounded by water and electricity shortages due to poor infrastructure, protests erupted in Iran's Khuzestan, and the government began shooting the demonstrators. Anti-regime protests rippled through Ahvaz (situated in the southwest) to Azerbaijani-populated Tabriz in the north. Tehran also witnessed protests. These were followed by a strike of a hundred thousand oil industry workers, who submitted economic demands and formed workers' councils to organize the struggle. Although these protests were suppressed, there are now mass teachers' strikes and other social protests in Iran.

If one adds in national issues (the absence or substandard of local language instruction in the schools (aside from Persian and Arabic), lack of local national autonomy, emerging Persian nationalism, and underfunding of some national regions), it becomes obvious how precarious the Iranian regime's position is. According to studies by American sociologists, protests (both politically and socially motivated) are occurring in the most densely populated areas, with the highest voting abstention rate. Meanwhile, election turnout is falling, and less than half of Iranians cast their votes during the last elections. For all these reasons, the Iranian leadership will have to be cautious about the protest potential of the country's Azeri population.

A powerful military-political and economic bloc, Turkey-Pakistan-Qatar-Azerbaijan, is taking shape now. This bloc is aimed against Iran, India, Russia. It has interests in Afghanistan, the Central Asian countries and the Middle East. The relations between the bloc member-states are complicated. Azerbaijan is uninterested in clashing with India. Additionally, Ankara has multi-billion-dollar trade contracts with New Delhi. The blocs are not immutable structures with unified interests. Nevertheless, as Turkey intensifies relations with Pakistan, it cannot but understand that this complicates its relations with India. Pakistan has long been an active supporter of Azerbaijan. So far this support has been rather verbal, but today Islamabad is drawing closer to Ankara. The Pakistanis are engaged in joint maneuvers with the Turkish and Azerbaijani military. For its part, Turkey is making statements in support of Kashmiri Muslims and turns to Pakistan when help and mediation is required in the country's contacts with the Taliban. Turkey strives to gain a foothold in Afghanistan, and use it to increase its influence in Central Asia. This is a mutually beneficial exchange.

Even though the campaign was targeting India, the report states it also targeted Saudi Arabia and UAE, two middle eastern countries with close ties with India.

The report by DisinfoLab states that most of the prominent handles promoting this campaign were related to the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn). Some of the Muslim Brotherhood ‘influencers’ who led this psy-war against India include:

Mohamed Al Sagheer, Member of Board of Trustees of International Union of Muslim Scholars, an organization of Muslim Islamic theologians and known as the “supreme authority of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Earlier he had appeared on Al Jazeera calling for the boycott of French products.

Sami Kamal El Din, Egyptian Journalist based in Istanbul, who has been listed as a terrorist twice by the Egyptian govt, and an expert in propaganda. He had impersonated an Egyptian intelligence official to call several Egyptian celebrities asking them to support the US move to US mission in Israel to Jerusalem, the video of which was ‘leaked’ and the story was published in New York Times. His YouTune channel was deleted on request of Egypt for spreading fake news.

Ahmad Muaffaq Zeidan, journalist who mainly covers Taliban and Al Qaeda. He has put on watch list by National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States for suspected links with Al-Qaeda and Muslim Brotherhood.

Yasser Abu Hilalah, former Managing Director of Al Jazeera Arabic News, who is known to have ties with the officials of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and even shared platforms with them. Disinfolab says that Hilalah amplified the campaign targeting India and had retweeted several media articles which had highlighted the campaign.

Omar Abdulaziz, activist who is sympathizer of several terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq, especially Daesh (ISIS).

The most prominent media house that published reports on the campaign, almost promoting them, was Al Jazeera. All the major portals of the media house promoted the campaign by tweeting from its various handles like Al Jazeera Global, Arabic, Kuwait, Turkey, Egypt etc.

Other media houses that promoted the anti-India campaign included the Turkish state-owned news channel TRT World. In fact, TRT World had launched a promotion of the news article through TRT Arabia, which ran a Facebook Ad. This media house has a history of running anti-India fake news.

Some other media houses which actively pushed the campaign included Rassd News Network (RNN) from Egypt, Arabi21 from Egypt funded by Qatar, Al-Araby News from UK funded by Qatar, US-based Arab-American newspaper Watan Serb etc.

Not just users from middle eastern countries, users from Pakistan were also not behind in spreading fake news in the campaign. They were at the forefront in sharing a video of a Muslim family attacked by Muslims in India to claim that the Muslim family was beaten by Hindus.

Cyrano wrote:Looks like a Star Wars scene with storm troopers from Tatooine

rsingh wrote:India started training for UAE diplomats in 2018. It seems first batch is out. Diplomacy is similar to our babus.

Unlike those Mena nations struggling to secure cargoes of wheat and other staples, the UAE is in a better position, even though it currently imports 80 to 90 per cent of its food, thanks to its forward-looking food strategy during the past several years.

Behind the UAE's success in developing a global-scale food production and distribution capacity is the country's National Food Strategy 2051, first announced in November 2018 by Minister for Climate Change and Environment Mariam Almheiri. The plan has informed the UAE's acquisition of agricultural and food production assets from South America to South Asia.

To attain global scale, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) entered into a joint venture with Dutch fertiliser producer OCI NV, merging their fertiliser operations to form a new global fertiliser giant Fertiglobe.

In October 2021, Fertiglobe raised $795 million in the third-largest IPO on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and became the largest export-focused nitrogen fertiliser platform in the world

In the first six months of 2021, Fertiglobe’s largest customers, in order, were the US (16 per cent), Australia (12 per cent), India (10 per cent), Spain (9 per cent) and Ethiopia (6 per cent).

Above the ground, the Abu Dhabi-based holding company ADQ is playing the primary role in advancing the UAE's national food strategy. The workhorse of ADQ's food production subsidiaries is the global agribusiness firm Al Dahra, which has acquired about 300,000 acres of productive agricultural land across Romania, Serbia, Spain, Morocco, Egypt, Namibia and the US, along with additional agricultural assets in South Africa, India, Pakistan, China and Australia. Al Dahra is a key producer of animal feed, cereal grains for human consumption, fruits and vegetables and dairy products.

In a major breakthrough to expand the UAE's presence as a power player in global food markets, ADQ acquired in September 2021 a 45 per cent share in the global food commodity trading giant Louis Dreyfus, whose 2020 net sales totalled $46.9 billion. ADQ then further expanded its global footprint in 2022 by acquiring a majority stake in Unifrutti, the vertically integrated fruit company whose production operations in Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Spain, Italy, South Africa and the Philippines produce 560,000 tonnes of fresh fruit that the company sells in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

ADQ has also invested $2bn in the Abu Dhabi-based retailing conglomerate Lulu Group, operating in 22 countries and known in the Gulf and Asia for its hypermarkets. Lulu, primarily managed by Indian emigres from Kerala, has been part of the effort to create a massive, $7bn India-UAE “food corridor” to further ensure the food security of the Emirates and other Middle Eastern countries. Lulu along with major Emirati participants DP World, Emaar Group, the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Sharaf Group are establishing a dedicated logistics infrastructure that connects India’s farms and farmers through the entire value chain to the UAE’s ports and markets. With Mena nations now looking to India as one of the few suppliers that can fill their wheat shortfalls, the India-UAE food corridor project has proven itself prescient.

ricky_v wrote:https://www.thenationalnews.com/weekend ... et-player/

Aditya_V wrote:Qatar and Kuwait are leading this crusade against India. They will overplay thier hand before quieting down

Vadivel wrote:Iran's GDP per capita when adjusted by PPP was $1.436 trillion in 2021.

US President Joe Biden will host a virtual summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Israel Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan during his visit to West Asia from July 13 to 16.

A senior US administration official told reporters in a background call Tuesday that the new grouping will be called “I2U2” — “I” for India and Israel and “U” for the US and UAE.

The India-Israel-US-UAE grouping, which met for the first time under a new framework in October 2021, dealt with issues concerning maritime security, infrastructure, digital infrastructure and transport. At that time, Ahmed Albanna, Ambassador of UAE to India, had referred to the new grouping as the ‘West Asian Quad’.

Wheat: The Grain Of Shared Interests

If one looks at the chart of region wise export of APEDA products, one can see that the West Asia- GCC region buys almost everything edible from India. The West Asian countries not only get food grains like Rice, Maize and wheat, but they also purchase fruits, dairy products, processed vegetables, cereals, onions among other items from India. In the Financial year, 2020-21, India exported nearly 24,00,000 metric tonnes of (both basmati as well as non-basmati) rice to the region. In the same financial year, the West Asian countries availed 2,82,678 metric tonnes of wheat from India. India also supplied 50,325 metric tonnes of maize to the region. In FY 2020-21, the total value APEDA products exported to the West Asia- GCC region (only six countries are mentioned in the list- Bahrain , Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia & UAE) is Rs. 27,502.04 crores.

This information becomes more interesting in the wake of a four-month suspension in exports and re-exports of wheat and wheat flour originating from India, from UAE. This moratorium applies to any exports done from free zones in the UAE as well. This 4-month period applies for the wheat and wheat products imported into UAE from India on or after 13th May, 2022.

This is the most significant point, expressing the synchronicity of objectives between the two countries. 14th May is the day India banned the export of wheat in order to manage her own overall food security and support the needs of neighbouring and other vulnerable developing countries.

The second factor is even more interesting. The UAE suspension in exports and re-exports of wheat originating from India will not allow Indian wheat sold to the UAE from being used for any other purposes other than UAE’s domestic consumption. The Indian government has approved the export of wheat to the UAE for domestic consumption.

On the other hand, India while banning wheat exports on 14th May had stated that one reason for the sudden curb on exports was to stop Indian wheat from getting ‘hoarded’ and traded in a third country for which it was not meant to be. Some countries had taken the issue of Indian ban to the WTO, seeking a ban on all export restrictions, in the name of the World Food Programme. India also gave a befitting reply to criticism in UNSC on 19th May.

The second part of synchronicity of objectives between India and UAE is placed in data. The United Arab Emirates exported $46.7M in Wheat Flours. The main destinations of Wheat flour exports from the United Arab Emirates are Saudi Arabia ($8.01M), Yemen ($7.14M), Somalia ($5.78M), Bahrain ($5.31M), and Oman ($4.67M). The foremost supplier of wheat to the UAE is India.

Furthermore, there are strategic relations between the UAE and India and both countries have signed the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in February 2022.

Obviously, UAE is an important point for re-export business. Out of UAE’s total exports, the re-exported goods form more than 45% approximately. The Free Zones in UAE support the growth in the re-export market. The free customs duty for Free Zone imports makes it an attractive choice for re-export. Besides it, the Free Trade Zones allow 100% foreign ownership and the full profit repatriation as well.

Taking advantage of this facility, some countries were buying indirectly from the UAE instead of India, for obvious reasons. The ban addresses this concern as well.

The timing is further telling a tale. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US President Joe Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Neftali Bennett and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan would attend the first-of-its-kind virtual summit of the I2U2 (I2- India-Israel, U2- US-UAE) grouping next month. The US State Department has called each of these countries as technological hubs. This virtual summit is stated to be focused on “expanding economic and political cooperation in the Middle East and Asia, including through trade, combating climate change, energy cooperation, and coordination on other vital shared interests”.

India : An In-Demand Partner In West Asia

one looks at the major global developments, sometimes one might feel that India is at the centre of them. India is now invited to play a central role in the formation of the I2U2 (India, Israel, US and UAE), what is being called ‘West Asian Quad’.

Formation of the I2U2

I2U2 where I2 is a reference to India and Israel, and U2 is a reference to the US and the UAE. Prima facie, US President Joe Biden is going to visit the Middle East next month and during this tour the leaders of India, Israel, the US and the UAE will hold a virtual dialogue. According to US officials, the new grouping will discuss the “food security crisis and other areas of cooperation across hemispheres where the UAE and Israel serve as important innovation hubs.”

A bit deeper, India and the UAE signed the FTA and CEPA on 18th February 2022, in one of the shortest negotiation procedures in recent history. Israel and the United Arab Emirates too inked the free trade agreement. This was a landmark Israel-UAE free trade deal, which was the first such agreement of Israel with any Arab country. Israel and UAE had also established diplomatic ties in 2020 after the signing of the Abraham Accords. So, the India, Israel and UAE trilateral was already in place.

On the other hand, the US-Israel-UAE trilateral was held in October 2021. The US-Israel-UAE trilateral meeting sought to discuss the issue of further operationalising and normalising the Abraham Accords. The US also played a crucial role in signing of the Abraham Accords.

A few days later, India joined the new minilateral, when External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Israeli counterpart held a virtual meeting with their US and UAE counterparts during Jaishankar’s official visit to Israel. One can see the foreshadowing of a new Quad with India on this occasion.

As far as the India, Israel and UAE trilateral is concerned, this grouping is basically about trade partnership, with the objective of boosting trade among their nations and trade worth $110 is estimated to be possible by 2030 between these three nations.

Since India has close ties with each member of this trilateral and the US, the first meeting of the foreign ministers of India, Israel, US, and UAE fulfilled the requirements of shaping a quad. India has her own set of strategic and geoeconomic interests, introduced to those of the Gulf states through this quad.

In any case, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) bloc is India’s single largest trading partner. The Indian market offers itself as an attractive proposition for the GCC, both as an oil consumer over the next decade, and as a general investment destination that has over 1.3 billion customers and investors alike.

India’s role in the genesis of I2U2

As aforesaid, the roots of I2U2 can be traced to October 2021 when External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar had visited Israel and other Foreign Ministers had joined him virtually. The four Ministers had discussed issues surrounding trade, climate and maritime security.

More so, India has continuously maintained a remarkable geostrategic balance in dealing with all the three opposites of power in the region, namely – Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Iran. The Abraham Accords made the economic prospects by the UAE and Israel comparatively unhazardous. Simultaneously, Israel is also increasingly integrating into the region. In march 2022, Foreign Ministers of Israel, US, UAE, Bahrain and Morocco had their first ever in-person gathering in Israel.  This has further eased the situation.

Thirdly, India has made deep strategic gains in the region over the past few years. New Delhi already has unparalleled trade ties in the region and a large diaspora. Along with New Delhi’s economic weight, geopolitical importance, India’s growing military power, India is fast becoming indispensable for the region.

For the Gulf countries, India is a major oil purchaser and a major supplier of almost everything else. Beyond oil, countries like the UAE look towards India as a source of diversification and modernisation. India with its massive IT industry and a vibrant space programme can help the UAE and other GCC countries, who are looking to modernise their economies and expand into other sectors for the post oil scenario.

Similarly, Israel looks towards India as a major partner. A lot of resemblance is seen in Israel and India in terms of counter-terrorism and battling radicalism.

The US too shares an exclusive relationship with India. The Indo-US relations have many dimensions from security, economy, diplomatic and political interests.

Now, the new four-nation dialogue with India, Israel and the United Arab Emirates during President Joe Biden’s visit to the region, according to reports attributed to a White House official, will be about security and “areas of cooperation across hemispheres”. Although hints have been dropped, no official details are available of this new initiative, its goals and reach from any side so far.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will visit Turkey next week, the Turkish president said Friday, as Ankara and Riyadh heal a bitter rift following the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul.

"The crown prince will visit Wednesday, we will welcome him" at the presidential palace in Ankara, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters.