New Delhi, July 14 (IANS) Wladyslaw Teofil Bartoszewski, Poland’s Secretary of State and Deputy Foreign Minister, on Tuesday hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi as an “extremely competent and accomplished” global leader who has changed India phenomenally with his leadership.

“He’s a major global leader; there’s no question about that. I mean, he’s extremely competent, extremely accomplished. India has changed phenomenally under his leadership. I have had the honour of meeting him and talking to him. He’s extremely charismatic, very pragmatic, forward-looking, and he’s changing India. So, when I hear him saying that India will be the third-largest economy in the world by 2047, I believe it,” Bartoszewski told IANS.

He noted that India is a non-aligned country and has a very good relationship with Poland and the Western countries and has also maintained a relationship with Russia as it used to with the erstwhile Soviet Union.

“Given the importance of India, given the role Prime Minister Modi plays in world politics, I think he’s already tried to persuade (Russian) President (Vladimir) Putin to show restraint some years ago,” the Polish Secretary of State noted.

“President Putin actually pays attention to what Prime Minister Modi tells him. Prime Minister Modi is one of the few people who actually can exert some pressure and influence on President Putin, and that is clearly something India could do to stop this (Ukraine) conflict,” Bartoszewski said in New Delhi on Tuesday.

He said that Poland is completely on the side of India when it comes to maintaining freedom of the seas.

“We, like India, are completely committed to maintaining freedom of the seas, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) agreement with the United Nations guaranteeing freedom of shipping. We are very concerned about the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, because we know that you start doing that and you start asking for tolls in one place, then the Strait of Malacca is closed, and that’s 50 per cent of the trade going on there. We are completely on the Indian side in this to try to cooperate to make sure that free shipment continues, because that is essential to our economic security and prosperity. India has a role to play,” he told IANS.

Bartoszewski noted that given the changed geopolitical situation, Poland is very keen to cooperate with the Indo-Pacific, and India is a crucial part of it.

“We want to cooperate with India in water infrastructure. We had problems in the Baltic Sea with broken cables, Internet cables, but there was an attempt to sever the underwater electricity cable going from Poland to Sweden and some other such matters, and we are very keen to exchange experiences and especially learn from India’s experience how to deal with such attempts outside the territorial waters,” the Polish Secretary of State said.

–IANS

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