The next visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to Qatar following the release of eight former Bharatiya citizens who were detained in the Gulf country.
“After concluding his visit to UAE, PM Modi will land in Qatar on February 14, 2024”, Bharatiya Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra said in a special press conference on Monday.
The announcement of the visit comes after Qatar released eight Bharatiya citizens detained in the country.
Notably, in October 2023, a Qatari court had given the eight men death sentence, which prompted New Delhi to sue the decision. Subsequently, the Court accepted Bharat’s appeal.
In December 2023, PM Modi met Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on the sidelines of the COP28 summit in Dubai. Possibly, it is believed that this interaction may have led to a change of position among the Qatari authorities on the death sentence case.
On December 3, 2023, just two days after PM Modi’s meeting with the Qatari leader, the Bharatiya ambassador to Qatar got the first consular access to meet the eight Bharatiyas in prison.
The Qatari court commuted the death sentences of the eight men and gave them imprisonment terms in the same month. All eight men have been released, seven of whom have already landed in Bharat.
“The two countries are among each other’s top trading partners with a bilateral trade of about US$ 85 billion in 2022-23”, according to a statement from Bharat’s foreign ministry.
Notably, the UAE is also among the top 4 investors in Bharat in terms of foreign direct investments in 2022-23.
“New Delhi was grateful for their return. “We deeply appreciate the decision of Qatar’s government and the Amir to release them. We are happy to have seven of those Bharatiya nationals back. 8th Bharatiya national has also been released and we continue to work with the Qatar government to see how quickly his return to Bharat would be possible”, said Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra.
He added, “The Prime Minister has personally supervised all the developments in the respective case and has never shied away from any initiatives that would ensure the return of Bharatiya nationals back to home,” he added.
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