Coronavirus: India-EU summit postponed indefinitely, New Delhi to bring back citizens from Iran

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's proposed visit to Brussels for the summit between India and the European Union has been called off in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak.

The India-EU summit was scheduled to be held in Brussels on March 13. Prime Minister was expected to hold the summit with the EU leaders – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel.

But the summit has now been postponed indefinitely as the Covid-19 outbreak triggered a global health scare.

“With regard to the proposed India-EU summit, both sides have agreed that due to health authorities advising against travel between regions, it would be wise to re-schedule the summit to a later mutually convenient date,” Raveesh Kumar, spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), told journalists in New Delhi.

Modi's proposed meeting with Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel in Brussels on March 13 would have been India's first summit with the Presidents of European Commission and European Council after United Kingdom's exit from the EU on January 31.

“The decision (to postpone the summit) has been taken in the spirit of the close cooperation between India and the EU, who share the same concerns and commitment to global health and hope that the outbreak is contained soon,” said Kumar.

Meanwhile, India explores its options to bring back its citizens from Iran, where the COVID-19 so far infected at least 3,513 people and killed at least 107.

New Delhi sent four scientists from Indian Council of Medical Research along with laboratory equipment were sent to Iran. They will screen Indian citizens, mostly students and pilgrims, stranded in the West Asian nation to check if they were already infected by Covid-19 or not.

The Government of India would help the citizens come back home – only the ones, who would be cleared by the medical team after screening.

“Update for Indians stranded in #Iran and for their families: Our medical team for screening arrives in Iran today. Hope to establish first clinic at Qom by this evening. Screening process will start immediately thereafter. Working on logistics of return with Iranian authorities,” External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar posted on Twitter on Thursday.

Kumar, the spokesperson of the MEA, said that the Government of India would make arrangements for the return of the stranded Indian citizens from Iran via normal aviation channel.

New Delhi had earlier sent a special aircraft of Air India to China's Wuhan twice – on January 31 and February 1 – to evacuate 647 Indian nationals and 43 foreign nationals from the “ground-zero” of the COVID-19 outbreak.

It also sent a military aircraft with a consignment of 15 tonnes of medical supplies – masks, gloves, defibrillators and other emergency medical equipment – to Wuhan in China onboard a C-17 aircraft on Wednesday as a mark of support to the endeavour by the local authorities and the government of the communist country to contain the outbreak.

The military aircraft also brought back to New Delhi 73 Indian nationals and 36 foreign nationals.

As many as 16,076 crew members and passengers on board 452 ships, which sailed from China or travelled to countries, where the Covid-19 spread, have already been scanned and not allowed to disembark at ports of India as a precautionary measures, according to an official of the Ministry of Shipping.