NEW
DELHI— India's foreign minister urged Australia on Saturday to ease coronavirus
travel restrictions for thousands of students who have been unable to get into
the country since the pandemic started 18 months ago.
اضافة اعلان
India sends tens of
thousands of students to top international universities worldwide with
Australia among the key destinations.
Foreign Minister
Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said he raised the issue "in some detail"
with his Australian counterpart Marise Payne alongside talks between defense
ministers from both countries dominated by Afghanistan.
"We have heard a lot
from the students, and I think their frustrations, their feelings, are
completely understandable," Jaishankar told reporters.
"Many of them would
like to be at the institutions where they want to study," adding students
were "a very high priority" for his government, which has also faced
hurdles with the US and Canada.
"We have been having
some problems with some other countries as well. We had initially with the US,
we are still having some issues with Canada," he added.
India also made approaches
to the UK before it eased travel restrictions.
And videos of Indian medical
students enrolled in China went viral recently as they pleaded with the
government to help them return to their universities.
University education is now
a multibillion dollar industry and Australia is one of several countries to
have aggressively campaigned to attract Indian students.
"I am one of the most
enthusiastic proponents of welcoming back our much-loved Indian students back
to the Australian education system as soon as it is possible for us,"
Payne said at a press conference alongside Jaishankar.
She added that there were
around 60,000 Indians currently studying in Australia.
"The COVID
restrictions have impacted travel to and from Australia, not just the students that you have
raised but for Australians themselves," she said.
But Payne stressed that
higher vaccination levels of Australians were required to "give us the
confidence to begin a sort of reopening" that will enable students to
return.
"I look forward to
being one of the people at the airport to welcome the first arrivals of Indian
students coming back."
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