UK Foreign Secretary speaks with EAM on ‘facilitating travel’ after UK eases restrictions

New Delhi, Oct 8 (UNI) Hours after the UK announced withdrawal of its mandatory quarantine on Indian travellers, the British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss on Friday spoke with External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on “facilitating travel” between the two countries, in an indication that the mandatory quarantine and testing regimen slapped as a countermeasure on British travellers to India would soon be lifted.

“Good to talk to UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss. Agreed to facilitate travel between our two countries. This will help to implement the Roadmap 2030,” Jaishankar tweeted on the talks.

Ending the brewing row over vaccine certification, the UK on Thursday night announced that from Monday, October 11, Indian travellers to Britain double-jabbed with Covishield do not have to quarantine on arrival.

In fact, UK High Commissioner Alex Ellis in a video message appealed to the Indian government to do likewise for travellers from the UK to India.

“…So let’s now go further, let’s open up more flights between the two countries, let’s get British tourists able to get in to India, they are desperate to do so, let’s facilitate business travellers who are trying to come in to India with e visas.

“This is a further step down the road set by PM Modi and PM Johnson when they agreed to form the strategic partnership between our two countries in May,” he said in a video message on his twitter handle.

The talks between Liz Truss and Jaishankar are an indication that India would soon withdraw its reciprocal testing and quarantine measures that UK travellers are being made to follow from October 4.

India had slapped the reciprocal measures on the UK after it failed to give recognition to its CoWIN vaccination certification.

India announced the reciprocal measures after the UK gave the go-ahead to AstraZeneca’s Covishield vaccine but left out India from the list of approved countries for vaccine certification.

UNI/