Beijing, April 22:Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold a summit meeting in Wuhan city in China from April 27 to 28 to improve bilateral relations, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced in Beijing on Sunday.
Modi will be visiting the central Chinese city at the invitation of Mr. Xi, Mr. Wang said at a joint media event with visiting External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj after their talks.
Ms. Swaraj is in China for talks with Mr. Wang and to take part in the two-day meeting of Foreign Ministers of the eight-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) from April 23.
Sources said that it will be an informal summit meeting between Mr. Xi and Mr. Modi during which both leaders will try to work out a new paradigm for the bilateral ties bogged down with a host of disputes and differences.
This will be fourth visit of Mr. Modi to China after he came to power in 2014. He is again due to visit China to take part in the SCO summit to be held at Qingdao city on June 9-10.
The Modi-Xi summit meeting is taking place in the backdrop of series of high level interactions between the two countries, starting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang’s visit to India in December, the first after Doklam standoff.
It was followed by two meetings between National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi and the visit early this year by Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale to Beijing.
The two countries also held 11th Joint Economic Group meeting and the fifth Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) in Beijing recently.
Besides meetings between officials from the two Foreign Ministries, both sides held working mechanism meeting on border affairs and cross border rivers as well disarmament and non-proliferation dialogue in which India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) was discussed and culminated in Sunday's talks between Ms. Swaraj and Mr. Wang.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismisses defence minister in surprise announcement
Jerusalem, Nov 5: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday dismissed his popular defence minister, Yoav Gallant, in a surprise announcement that came as the country is embroiled in wars on multiple fronts across the region.
Netanyahu and Gallant have repeatedly been at odds over the war in Gaza. But Netanyahu had avoided firing his rival. Netanyahu cited “significant gaps” and a “crisis of trust” between the men in his Tuesday evening announcement.
“In the midst of a war, more than ever, full trust is required between the prime minister and defence minister,” Netanyahu said. “Unfortunately, although in the first months of the campaign there was such trust and there was very fruitful work, during the last months this trust cracked between me and the defence minister.”
In the early days of the war, Israel's leadership presented a unified front as it responded to Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack. But as the war dragged on and spread to Lebanon, key policy differences have emerged. While Netanyahu has called for continued military pressure on Hamas, Gallant had taken a more pragmatic approach, saying that military force has created the necessary conditions for a diplomatic deal that could bring home hostages held by the Hamas group.
Gallant, a former general who has gained public respect with a gruff, no-nonsense personality, said in a statement: “The security of the state of Israel always was, and will always remain, my life's mission."
Gallant has worn a simple, black buttoned shirt throughout the war in a sign of sorrow over the October 7 attack and developed a strong relationship with his US counterpart, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.
A previous attempt by Netanyahu to fire Gallant in March 2023 sparked widespread street protests against Netanyahu. He also flirted with the idea of dismissing Gallant over the summer but held off until Tuesday's announcement.
Gallant will be replaced by Foreign Minister Israel Katz, a Netanyahu loyalist and veteran Cabinet minister who was a junior officer in the military. Gideon Saar, a former Netanyahu rival who recently rejoined the government, will take the foreign affairs post.
Netanyahu has a long history of neutralising his rivals. In his statement, he claimed he had made “many attempts” to bridge the gaps with Gallant.
“But they kept getting wider. They also came to the knowledge of the public in an unacceptable way, and worse than that, they came to the knowledge of the enemy - our enemies enjoyed it and derived a lot of benefit from it,” he said.
