Blinken coming on March 1 for G20 meet

Major focus of the visit would be on strengthening multilateralism and deepening cooperation on food and energy security.

In an official press statement, the US State Department has disclosed that its Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to India in the first week of March. The American diplomat will be participating in the G20 Foreign Ministers' meeting that is going to be held on the first of March. India is the President of G20 for the year and holds a comprehensive range of activities including high-level meetings like these the whole year.

Apart from India, Blinken will also be traveling to several other nations that include Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. The State Department acknowledged that he will be holding several meetings while in India. Out of the meetings scheduled, the ones with officials of the Union government and the civil society are on the cards.

According to the statement, the meetings are crucial as they would reaffirm the strong partnership between India and the US which have been going deeper and becoming better over the years.

Comprehensive range of issues to be addressed

In the statement, it has come out that Blinken's visit will have great implications given the global situation, especially the Ukraine war which has been going on for over one year. His participation in the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting would have several issues on the table.

Major focus would be on strengthening multilateralism and deepening cooperation on food and energy security. Apart from discussing issues like sustainable development that gathering would also be elaborating on the issues like counter-narcotics and global health which have all been in the focus after the pandemic.

Blinken would also be elaborating on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief which are becoming important after the natural calamities like the recent earthquakes in Turkey. In addition to gender equality, the G20 meeting would also be focusing on women's empowerment.

To visit Central Asian nations too

Apart from India, Blinken's itinerary will also include a visit to Kazakhstan where he will have a meeting with senior Kazakh officials at Astana on February 28 to discuss bilateral relationship. Additionally, he will also be part of the C5+1 Ministerial meeting where he will meet representatives of each of the five Central Asian States -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

He will also be visiting Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to discuss prospective ties between the two nations and regional security in the background of the Ukraine war.