FACT SHEET: World Leaders Launch a Landmark India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor
SEPTEMBER 09, 2023
Today,?we?the leaders of the United States, India, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates,?France, Germany, Italy?and the European Union?announced a?Memorandum of Understanding?committing to work together to?develop a new India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor.?Announced?at the G20 Leaders’?event on the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, this landmark?corridor?is expected to stimulate economic development through enhanced connectivity and economic integration?across?two continents,?thus?unlocking sustainable?and inclusive economic growth. ?Through the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor,?we aim?to usher in?a new?era of connectivity with a railway, linked through ports?connecting?Europe, the Middle East,?and?Asia.?The United States and our partners intend?to?link?both continents?to commercial hubs and facilitate the development and export of clean energy;?lay undersea cables and?link?energy grids?and telecommunication lines?to expand reliable access to electricity;?enable?innovation of advanced clean energy technology; and connect communities to secure and stable Internet.?Across the corridor, we?envision?driving existing?trade and manufacturing and strengthening?food security and supply chains.?Our approach?aims to?unlock?new investments?from partners, including the private sector,?and spur the?creation of quality jobs.?Looking to the future,?the United States?underscores?our?unwavering commitment to?pursuing?transformative regional investments and?working to?build?out this corridor?together with our partners. These investments are a?gateway to our future and underpin?our?shared vision of an?open, secure, and prosperous future.?
Read the MOU?here .
MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING ON THE PRINCIPLES OF AN INDIA - MIDDLE EAST - EUROPE ECONOMIC CORRIDOR Pursuant to this Memorandum of Understanding, the Governments of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the European Union, the Republic of India, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the French Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Italian Republic, and the United States of America (the “Participants”) commit to work together to establish the India - Middle East - Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). The IMEC is expected to stimulate economic development through enhanced connectivity and economic integration between Asia, the Arabian Gulf, and Europe. The IMEC will be comprised of two separate corridors, the east corridor connecting India to the Arabian Gulf and the northern corridor connecting the Arabian Gulf to Europe. It will include a railway that, upon completion, will provide a reliable and cost-effective cross-border ship-to-rail transit network to supplement existing maritime and road transport routes – enabling goods and services to transit to, from, and between India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and Europe. Along the railway route, Participants intend to enable the laying of cable for electricity and digital connectivity, as well as pipe for clean hydrogen export. This corridor will secure regional supply chains, increase trade accessibility, improve trade facilitation, and support an increased emphasis on environmental social, and government impacts. Participants intend that the corridor will increase efficiencies, reduce costs, enhance economic unity, generate jobs, and lower greenhouse gas emissions - - resulting in a transformative integration of Asia, Europe and the Middle East. In support of this initiative, Participants commit to work collectively and expeditiously to arrange and implement all elements of these new transit 2 routes, and to establish coordinating entities to address the full range of technical, design, financing, legal and relevant regulatory standards. Today’s Memorandum of Understanding is the result of initial consultations. It sets forth political commitments of the Participants and does not create rights or obligations under international law. The Participants intend to meet within the next sixty days to develop and commit to an action plan with relevant timetables.
Signed at ______________ on ______________, 2023, in the English language.
For the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia:
For the European Union:
For the Republic of India:
For the United Arab Emirates:
For the French Republic:
For the Federal Republic of Germany:
For the Italian Republic:
For the United States of America:
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Financial Times:
US and Bahrain sign security deal as Washington seeks fresh Gulf ties
Agreement seen as possible blueprint for accords with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
By Simeon Kerr in Dubai
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy . Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here . https://www.ft.com/content/0bae8183-2663-49a6-acb7-eee1fbd6baac?signupConfirmation=successThe US and Bahrain have signed a security and economic agreement, a signal of Washington’s renewed engagement with its Gulf allies and a potential blueprint for follow-on deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The deal, agreed by US secretary of state Antony Blinken and Bahrain’s prime minister, Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, on Wednesday, would strengthen military and intelligence co-ordination, the White House said. Bahrain, which hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, is already a non-Nato Washington ally regarded by the west as a bulwark against Iranian influence. “There’s keen interest in the Gulf in having explicit security agreements with the US,” said Jon Alterman, Middle East programme director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank in Washington. “The Bahrain agreement falls far short of what neighbours are seeking, but it will be the key reference point for their negotiations.” Gulf states are searching for protection akin to Nato’s Article 5 commitment of mutual defence, but the US Senate is not keen to create binding commitments for the country to fight another war in the Middle East, Alterman added. Bahrain, along with the UAE, normalised relations with Israel in 2020. The US hopes to elicit a similar response from Saudi Arabia, in return for security guarantees and economic incentives. The US and EU last week backed the development of a ship and rail corridor connecting India to the Mediterranean Sea through the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel. Lengthy US-UAE discussions towards another comprehensive partnership have yet to make a breakthrough. The UAE was angered at what it saw as a tepid US response to missile strikes by Yemeni rebels on its capital last year. Abu Dhabi’s technological co-operation with China has also raised alarm in Washington. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, while both concerned about the Iranian threat, are also working to improve bilateral ties with Tehran as the region pursues de-escalation.
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy . Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here . https://www.ft.com/content/0bae8183-2663-49a6-acb7-eee1fbd6baac?signupConfirmation=successThe agreement comes as the Gulf kingdom struggles with domestic division. On the eve of the crown prince’s visit to Washington, hundreds of opposition prisoners suspended their protest against conditions in Bahrain’s jails after the government agreed to introduce changes. The kingdom has failed to find social peace since the Arab spring unrest of 2011, when protests led by the majority Shia Muslims were brutally quelled by the minority Sunni-led government, backed by Gulf leaders who feared the spread of democracy movements and Iranian encroachment across the Arabian peninsula. The White House said promoting human rights was an “important topic” of discussions with the crown prince. The agreement also spans economic co-operation, hoping to build on the US-Bahrain free trade agreement of 2006, which has helped to more than triple trade to $3bn a year. It promotes the development of “trusted” digital technologies to support secure telecommunications networks, which the US described as the first binding agreement of its kind.
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Blinken: Israel-Saudi deal ‘cannot be a substitute’ for two-state solution
The top U.S. diplomat said that for Riyadh, too, progress on the Palestinian issue was necessary for the normalization process to move forward.
(September 14, 2023 / JNS)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia could not come at the expense of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Speaking on the “Pod Save the World” podcast, Blinken said, “Normalization—any of the efforts that are going on to improve relations between Israel and its neighbors—are not, cannot be a substitute for Israel and the Palestinians resolving their differences and having a much better future for Palestinians. And in our judgment, of course, that must… needs to involve a two-state solution.”
He went on to say that progress with regard to the Palestinians was important to the Saudis, too.
“It’s also clear from what we hear from the Saudis that if this process is to move forward, the Palestinian piece is going to be very important,” he said.
In response to a question from the show’s hosts as to the advisability of “rewarding” the current leadership of Israel and Saudi Arabia, the top U.S. diplomat emphasized the issue transcended individual leaders and governments.
“If you have the leading Muslim country in the world, Islamic country in the world, making peace with Israel, that’s going to have benefits that travel well beyond the region,” he said.
“This and most things that we do are not about individual leaders or individual governments; they’re about the substance of the issue and whether we can, in whatever we’re doing, advance a world that’s a little bit more peaceful, a little bit more prosperous, a little bit more full of opportunity,” he said. “And there’s no question in my mind that if we could help achieve normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, it would move the world in that direction,” he added.
“We’ve had extraordinary turmoil in that part of the world going back to at least 1979—decades of turmoil. Moving away from that, having more moderating and integrating dynamics carry things forward, I think would be a profound change and a profound change for the good—and a change that would, again, not be tied to any specific government but to the fundamental interests of the countries involved,” he said.
Last month, Israeli Foreign Minister?Eli Cohen ?told the Arabic-language Elaph online newspaper that the Palestinian issue would not be an obstacle to normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia.
“The current Israeli government will take steps to improve the Palestinian economy,” he said.
In exchange for supporting a normalization agreement, the?Palestinian Authority ?reportedly wants more control over areas of Judea and Samaria, the reopening of the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem and the resumption of Saudi financial support.
“Senior [P.A. chief Mahmoud] Abbas adviser Hussein al-Sheikh, who is leading the consultations on the issue with Riyadh, gave Saudi National Security Adviser Musaed bin Mohammed al-Aiban the list of possible deliverables three months ago,”?Axios?reported in August.?
Riyadh has already proposed resuming?financial assistance? to the P.A., according to Saudi officials and former Palestinian officials.
Recently,?Riyadh ?appointed its first-ever non-resident envoy to the P.A., who will double as consul general to Jerusalem.
The list of demands suggests Palestinian leaders are taking a more practical approach to Saudi-Israel normalization than they did in 2020 to the Abraham Accords. It described that deal between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain as “a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people.”
Netanyahu ?last month downplayed claims that the Palestinian issue has played a significant role in the Israel-Saudi deal negotiations. “Is that what’s being said in corridors? Is that what’s being said in discreet negotiations? The answer is a lot less than you think,” he said.
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