Lauding India’s External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar, the UAE’s minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Omar Sultan Al Olama said that he is very impressed by how the former positions India’s foreign policy on the world stage amid geopolitical tugs of war.

Responding to how he tackles geopolitical headwinds, Omar Sultan Al Olama said, “Historically, the world was unipolar, bipolar, or tripolar, where you had to choose sides. I am very impressed by your minister of foreign affairs — I see some of his speeches. One thing is very clear for both the UAE and India is that we don’t need to choose sides.”

He was speaking at a conference ‘CyFY2022’ at a Delhi-based think tank where he had virtually joined union ministers from India and several parliamentarians.

He added, “At the end, geopolitics is determined by the best interest of certain parties. …The model that existed historically is unfortunately no longer here. Today a country needs to think about its best interests.”

The minister also spoke about the growing prominence of Hindi cinema or ‘Bollywood’ in the UAE and said that people in UAE watch bollywood and they have an affinity towards India.

INDIA, US AND UAE CAN WORK TOGETHER’

Omar Sultan Al Olama also emphasised that India, the United States and the UAE can work together and cited the example of India-Israel-UAE-USA group.

“Now is the time to dominate the world through commerce, and countries like India and the UAE can work together to substantially increase their footprint across the world,” he said talking about the importance of trade and investment.

“The way to dominate the world today is through commerce. If countries like India and the UAE can work together, we can substantially increase our footprint in the world,” Olama said in his video interaction.

He said that there are ingrained roots between India and the UAE and multiple possible areas for cooperation, particularly in collaboration between startups in both countries.