Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan display their copies of signed agreements while US President Donald Trump looks on, at the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords, at the White House in Washington, DC, Sept. 15, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Tom Brenner.

i24 News – The United Arab Emirates (UAE), India and France announced a trilateral initiative to launch clean energy projects, with a particular focus on solar and nuclear sources.

In a phone call on Saturday, the three countries’ top diplomats agreed to cooperative projects in the fields of energy, climate change and biodiversity, they announced in a joint statement.

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They will expand their cooperation through initiatives such as the UAE-led Mangrove Alliance for Climate and the Indo-Pacific Parks Partnership led by India and France. It was agreed that the three countries should focus on key issues such as single-use plastic pollution, desertification and food security in the context of the International Year of Millets, the statement said.

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine a year ago, European countries began looking for alternative energy sources to replace Russian oil and gas, including reaching out to oil-rich Arab Gulf countries has been a common strategy. Another factor in the increasing integration of the Gulf states into international bodies is the normalization with Israel achieved by the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco with the US-brokered Abraham accords in 2020.

Saturday’s announcement follows a significant landmark in the integration of the Israeli, Indian and UAE economies, the creation of a new trade route and commercial corridor linking southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.

The three countries will work on implementing specific, achievable projects on clean energy, the environment and biodiversity, they said in the joint statement. The initiative also aims to expand cooperation in the field of sustainable projects.

In addition, the three countries said they would strive to align their economic, technological and social policies more closely, as per the goals of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.

Separately, the three states also agreed to increase military cooperation, as well as cooperation in the field of combating diseases and pandemics and joining forces in the field of vaccination, they said.

The three countries called the “roadmap” announced on Saturday the next step continuing from talks that first began in September on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.