Indian Minister of Home Affairs Minister Rajnath Singh concluded his three-day visit to Mongolia on Sunday. He has been focusing on furthering India’s relations with Mongolia and strengthening security cooperation. Mongolia is an important strategic partner and India wants to realise the huge potential which bilateral relations with the country can bring.

On Friday, the Indian Minister participated in the groundbreaking ceremony of the first Mongolian oil refinery which is now under construction in Dornogobi Province. On the second day in Ulaanbaatar, he visited a Buddhist monastery and held a meeting with his counterpart – the minister for justice and interior affairs on Saturday. Also, he has visited the headquarters of Mongolia’s Border Protection Force before flying to Delhi on 24 June.

India was the first country outside the then socialist bloc to establish diplomatic ties with Mongolia on 24 December, 1955.

In 2015, Narendra Modi visited the country, the first ever by an Indian Prime Minister. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also visited the country in April this year and discussed economic cooperation in infrastructure development, energy, services and information technology with her Mongolian counterpart. The two countries also agreed to explore the possibility of launching direct air links between New Delhi and the Mongolian capital. Minister Swaraj was the first Indian foreign minister to visit the resource-rich country in 42 years.