Munich: The External Affairs Minister of India Dr S. Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi had a brief conversation on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
The interaction took place on Saturday when the EAM was going to the stage for a panel discussion and Wang was walking down the podium.
The impromptu interaction comes after months of no communication between the two countries.
Last time the two leaders met in Indonesia on the sidelines of ASEAN meet in July 2023.
The Security Conference, an annual conference on global security issues, began in Munich on Friday.
Jaishankar has already met UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron and Peru Foreign Minister Javier Gonzalez-Olaechea on the sidelines of the conference.
Meanwhile, the union minister said a permanent and long-term fix to the Israel-Palestine conflict is necessary to avoid what the world witnessed on October 7 last year when Hamas launched surprise attacks from Gaza.
Speaking at a panel discussion on ‘Growing the Pie: Seizing Shared Opportunities’ at the ongoing Munich Security Conference, the minister stressed the necessity and urgency of a two-state solution. “There has to be a permanent fix, a long-term fix, otherwise, we are going to see a recurrence,” Jaishankar said when asked about India’s views on the spiralling conflict that has seen at least 28,858 Palestinians dead and 68,667 wounded since the hostilities broke last year.
Stating that India has long believed in a two-state solution, the minister said many more countries in the world feel that the two-state solution is not just necessary, “but it is more urgent than it was before”.
The solution has long been suggested as the best hope for peace in the region, which would see an independent Palestinian state established alongside the existing one of Israel.
Elaborating further, the External Affairs Minister said that what happened on October 7 was “terrorism” and that Israel “should be, should have been very mindful of civilian casualties”.
Calling the return of the hostages imperative, Jaishankar added that there is a need for a “sustainable humanitarian corridor” to provide relief to the people in war-ravaged areas.
The 60th Munich Security Conference, which began on Friday, is currently underway at Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich and is being held under the chairmanship of the German Ambassador to the US, Christoph Heusgen.
Ms Kalinga