The Capitals: Delhi's G20 delivery faces war-stocked West Asia wicket

On September 9, 2023, when India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted the leaders of the world's biggest economies during New Delhi's stewardship of the G20 Leaders' Summit, the ambitious India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) prompted The Capitals edition of that week to be headlined as follows: Delhi delivers as the leader of Global South.  

But Delhi's IMEC delivery is now facing a war-stocked wicket in West Asia amid the Israel-Hamas war. 

On two different occasions recently, US President Joe Biden in Washington cited IMEC as one of the reasons why Hamas first launched attacks on Israel. 

Also read | Israel-Hamas war: Joe Biden's wartime address hails India-Middle East-Europe corridor

"I am convinced one of the reasons Hamas attacked when they did, and I have no proof of this, just my instinct tells me, is because of the progress we were making towards regional integration for Israel, and regional integration overall. We can’t leave that work behind," Biden said.

Also read | Advancing India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor potential reason behind Hamas attack: Biden

Described by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the "largest cooperation project" in Israeli history and hailed by US President Joe Biden as a transcontinental connectivity project that will make West Asia "more stable and better connected to its neighbours", the passage of IMEC has entered a moment of uncertainty, at least for now.

According to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on principles of IMEC signed during the New Delhi G20 summit, the representatives of its signatories — India, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, European Union and the United States — were supposed to meet within 60 days after September 9, 2023 "to develop and commit to an action plan with relevant timetables". 

But the attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7 came right in the middle of this timeline. The signatories of IMEC are yet to formalise an action plan for the development of the economic corridor aimed to facilitate the transit of commerce, energy and data to, from and between India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel and Europe. 

While experts and officials have told WION that they will carry on with the IMEC — war in West Asia notwithstanding — it remains to be seen in the coming weeks how the developments pan out for a project which was designed to reap the benefits of a state of calm in West Asia.

The Capitals will continue to keep an eye on the evolving state of war in West Asia and its consequences for the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor. See you next weekend.

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