Sushma Swaraj, India’s external affairs minister, said that Mongolia is not only India’s “strategic partner”, but also a “spiritual neighbour” because of the common Buddhist heritage.
Swaraj, the first Indian foreign minister to visit the resource-rich, landlocked country in the last 42 years, arrived in Ulaanbaatar on April 24 on a two day visit. She met Mongolia’s President Khaltmaagiin Battulga on April 26.
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Swaraj said India will reconnect with Magnolia through Buddhism. “We are strategic partners, but more than that we are spiritual partners. This spiritual connection through Buddhism provides strength to our relationship. It is not a partnership of convenience but a relationship of trust and spiritual strength,” Sushma Swaraj said while addressing the birth centenary celebrations of Kushok Bakula Rinpoche, a monk from Ladakh and former Indian ambassador to Mongolia on April 25.
Swaraj said that one of the efforts in this direction has been to link the Buddhist pilgrimage sites in India for fellow pilgrims from the neighbourhood and beyond, including Mongolia. India has also offered to provide a statue of Lord Buddha to the Gandan Monastery in Mongolia and invited Buddhist scholars and students “to visit India to discover our precious heritage.”
The two countries agreed to explore ways to identify new areas of cooperation in all sectors of mutual interest and to enhance bilateral trade and investments.