Jaishankar protests deaths of 3 Indian seafarers in US strikes in call with American official

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Saturday spoke to United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio and registered India’s protest against the US strikes on commercial vessels in the Gulf that killed three Indian seafarers off the coast of Oman.

“I reiterated India’s strong protest at the attacks by the US Navy in the Gulf that killed three Indian mariners,” Jaishankar said in a social media post. “Such lethal actions against commercial shipping are not justified.”

The conversation came hours after the Ministry of External Affairs said it had summoned the US Chargé d’Affaires, Jason Meeks, for the second consecutive day to convey India’s protest against the continued US strikes on ships carrying Indian crew members in West Asia.

Meeks had also been summoned on Thursday to register a protest against Wednesday’s strike on a commercial tanker off the coast of Oman in which three Indians were killed.

Twenty-one members of the crew had been rescued from the Palau-flagged tanker Settebello.

On Thursday, Randhir Jaiswal, the external affairs ministry spokesperson, said that New Delhi had informed Meeks of “our deepest concerns on the ongoing incidents of attacks” and had “registered a strong protest” in the matter.

“These attacks came from the US Navy stationed there,” Jaiswal had said at the government’s press briefing about the war in West Asia.

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