New Delhi: After returning home from his Dubai visit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke publicly about his short “conversation” with the Emir of Qatar at the COP summit, their first interaction since a Qatari Court delivered the death sentence to eight Indian nationals.
However, Modi did not explicitly state whether he addressed the matter with the Qatari ruler.
Last month, Qatar’s Court of First Instance the Court of First Instance in Qatar issued a death sentence to eight former Indian naval officers employed by an Omani company tasked with training Qatari defence personnel. While the order or the charges have not been made public, it is understood that the they were accused of espionage. The appeal process against the order has started, with at least one hearing held so far.
On Saturday, Modi was in Dubai to attend the COP summit, where he met with a series of leaders. The PM’s official social media accounts posted photos of discussions with the leaders of France, Israel, Maldives, Sweden, Switzerland and Uzbekistan, while the MEA issued readouts.
A video clip showing Modi strolling alongside Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and gesticulating at a COP event had been circulated across social media, but there was no official acknowledgement of the encounter. Modi left Dubai on Friday night.
Unusually, the Indian PM posted about their talks nearly 24 hours later.
On Saturday, he tweeted that their conversation on the sidelines of the COP summit was “on the potential of bilateral partnership and the well-being of the Indian community in Qatar”.
There is no confirmation whether Modi did raise the issue of the eight Indians with the Emir.
