- Strategic Interests: India’s involvement in Black Sea navigation talks highlights its growing strategic interests in the region.
- Foreign Policy Shift: This engagement reflects India’s broader shift in foreign policy, recognizing the interconnectedness of maritime security across different regions.
- Strategic Geography: India’s participation underscores its commitment to safeguarding trade routes and connectivity, extending its strategic geography westward
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski’s disclosure that India and Türkiye are involved in talks aimed at safeguarding navigation in the Black Sea deserves attention beyond the immediate context of the war in Ukraine. Details of the negotiations remain limited, but India’s involvement is consistent with a broader shift in New Delhi’s foreign policy, as maritime disruptions between the Indian Ocean and Europe increasingly become matters of direct national interest.
The timing is significant. At the BRICS summit in New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi placed maritime security unusually high on the agenda, arguing that global trade depends on secure sea lanes, open supply routes and the safety of seafarers. He also proposed a BRICS Seafarers’ Emergency Support Network, connecting maritime authorities and diplomatic missions to assist crews during crises. The initiative followed the deaths of 15 Indian merchant seafarers in conflict zones over the past nine months, including five in the Black Sea. Modi also raised their safety directly with Vladimir Putin.
This helps explain why the Black Sea is becoming relevant to India despite its geographic distance. New Delhi is increasingly exposed to instability along a maritime system extending from the Indian Ocean through the Gulf and the Mediterranean towards Europe. The conflicts are different, but their economic consequences converge in higher shipping risks, disrupted supply chains and greater uncertainty around access to international markets.
India’s growing commercial relationship with Europe and its investment in connectivity projects such as IMEC reinforce this westward extension of its strategic interests. What is emerging is not an Indian attempt to become a Black Sea power, but a recognition that economic integration with Europe also creates interests along the routes leading to it.
This makes India’s involvement particularly interesting in a region where Türkiye has long sought to preserve a privileged role. Ankara’s control of the Turkish Straits under the Montreux Convention gives it unique leverage, which it has complemented since Russia’s invasion by maintaining channels with Moscow and Kyiv and advocating a predominantly regional approach to Black Sea security.
That diplomacy has produced important results, particularly the 2022 grain agreement. Yet Turkish mediation also sits within Ankara’s wider effort to remain central to the regional security architecture and to limit arrangements that might dilute its influence. Its role cannot therefore be separated entirely from its own position in the Black Sea balance.
India arrives with a different set of interests. Its relations with Russia provide access, while its expanding ties with Europe give it an increasing stake in the commercial consequences of the war. The BRICS initiative suggests that New Delhi is beginning to frame maritime security across different theatres as a connected policy problem rather than a succession of distant crises.
The Black Sea talks may remain limited in scope. But India’s participation is another indication that its strategic geography is extending westwards. As the economic space between the Indian Ocean, Middle East and Europe becomes more integrated, New Delhi is discovering that protecting connectivity requires political engagement increasingly far from home.
