Over the past year, India has significantly expanded its outreach to the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait—with the ambition of diversifying its traditionally energy-focused relations with the region into security, military and political partnerships.
During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s May 15 visit to the UAE, the two sides agreed on the framework for a strategic defense partnership, while also signing deals on strategic petroleum reserves, Indian purchases of liquefied petroleum gas, and treaties on security and artificial intelligence. The two sides agreed to a bilateral trade target of $200 billion, which is roughly double the current amount.
The strategic defense partnership as well as the security and AI treaties signal a shift in bilateral relations, which until now had been revolving around trade in oil. The timing is important here. For the UAE, closer security relations with India are increasingly important because of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. While a preliminary deal was recently reached to end hostilities, the conflict still showed how vulnerable the UAE’s infrastructure and economy are to Iranian reprisals and how Abu Dhabi’s dependence on Washington’s increasingly unreliable security commitments has not paid off as expected. As a result, the UAE is adopting a long-term approach of diversification when it comes to its foreign partnerships.
The alignment between the two countries is also rooted in connectivity. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), unveiled in 2023, is based on the understanding of close seaborne cooperation between the two countries. For India, IMEC offers a potential route to Europe that reduces dependence on traditional maritime chokepoints and strengthens its role as a key South Asian trading power. For the UAE, the project reinforces its ambition to become a global logistics node. Though the war in Gaza and the resulting deterioration of ties between Israel and the Gulf states undermines the idea of the IMEC, Abu Dhabi, New Delhi and several European capitals continue to see it as a viable project.
India also sees an opportunity in the UAE’s withdrawal from OPEC. Freed from the cartel’s quotas on oil production, Abu Dhabi will be able to pump and export more. With its expanding economy and growing demand for resources, India has set its sights on increasing its oil imports from the Middle East. That is especially the case due to its oil trade with Russia coming under intense scrutiny from the U.S., causing tensions in relations between New Delhi and Washington.
The UAE is not the only GCC state welcoming expanded ties with India. The Gulf states regard the world’s most populous country as an investment destination, a lucrative and relatively stable market, and a source of skilled labor. For India, the Gulf states represent secure sources of energy and investment to power its economy, but also compatible partners for military cooperation, which has become an increasingly important aspect of India’s ties across the region.
Both sides share concerns over terrorism, extremism, maritime security and cybercrime. In January, India and Saudi Arabia held a Security Working Group meeting, reflecting the growing institutionalization of this agenda. India’s navy has also become more active in the western parts of the Indian Ocean, particularly in the commercial routes that feed the Gulf’s economy.
In February, negotiations for an India-GCC free trade agreement were formally launched. If sealed, the deal would further promote a relationship that has already expanded rapidly through bilateral commercial ties, particularly with the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Overall, India-GCC trade grew to $178 billion in the 2024-2025 fiscal year, constituting more than 15 percent of India’s global trade by value.
India is pursuing a multi-aligned foreign policy: deepening cooperation with the West while maintaining strategic autonomy and expanding ties with the Global South.
The initiation of the free trade talks follows the signing of the India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which entered into force in May 2022 and helped boost India’s non-oil exports to the GCC.
In December, India also signed a separate economic partnership deal with Oman, which went into full effect in early June, providing Indian exporters with extensive duty-free access to the Omani market. This is especially important for Indian manufacturers of engineering goods, textiles, processed food, pharmaceuticals, jewelry and marine products. Beyond that, Oman’s long coastline also plays a vital connectivity role for India, providing direct access to the Arabian Peninsula without having to transit the Strait of Hormuz.
In April 2025, Modi visited the GCC’s largest member, Saudi Arabia, resulting in significantly expanded bilateral cooperation in a wide range of sectors, from defense to tourism. Both sides’ national transformation agendas—Riyadh’s Vision 2030 and New Delhi’s Viksit Bharat 2047—are increasingly seen as aligned.
Another Gulf state that is important for New Delhi is Qatar, particularly for its LNG exports. The emir of Qatar made a state visit to India last year, and the two sides elevated their relations to a strategic partnership while agreeing to target a twofold increase in bilateral trade by 2030. Doha also announced its intention to invest $10 billion in India, opening an office of the Qatar Investment Authority as a demonstration of intent.
A key factor driving India’s stepped-up engagement with the GCC, and specifically the UAE and Saudi Arabia, is that its main rival, Pakistan, is also expanding its ties with the Gulf. Indeed, over the past year, Islamabad has made major moves to position itself as a key security player in the region. In 2025, Pakistan signed a military pact with Saudi Arabia, including a mutual defense clause that raised eyebrows in New Delhi.
To be sure, Pakistan’s military pact with Saudi Arabia is more transactional than an ironclad military alliance, and it is likely to remain so. But it can still spur deeper military cooperation, even if it is phased and in limited form. Indeed, the Saudi-Pakistani pact has apparently already been partially activated, as Pakistani jets were deployed to Saudi Arabia in April. In May, another report emerged of additional Pakistani deployments to Saudi Arabia.
Though the United States remains the Gulf’s major security partner, Gulf states are diversifying their external relationships. They maintain close ties with China, Russia, Europe and increasingly India. New Delhi, meanwhile, is pursuing a multi-aligned foreign policy: deepening cooperation with the West while maintaining strategic autonomy and expanding ties with the Global South.
This makes India an attractive partner for Gulf monarchies because it is a large, pragmatic and non-ideological player. Indeed, unlike Western partners, India does not attach political conditionality to cooperation. And unlike China, close ties with India do not cause tensions with the U.S. and its Western allies.
Thus, India’s relations with the GCC have arguably entered their most active phase in recent decades, shifting from a transactional, energy-for-labor relationship into a diverse strategic partnership covering everything from trade and investment to infrastructure and fintech. The shift is being driven by both regional developments as well as changing domestic economic priorities in the GCC and India. Yet, India and the Arab states are unlikely to become official allies. Rather, the relationship will be characterized by a transactional approach and pragmatism based on mutual benefits spurred by the presence of millions of Indians residing in the Gulf region.
Emil Avdaliani is a professor at European University and the director of Middle East Studies at the Georgian think-tank, Geocase.