New Delhi, June 26 (UNI) India today said that while it has welcomed the ceasefire between Iran and Israel, it is assessing the situation on the ground and based on that, will take a decision on whether to continue with the evacuation of its nationals from both countries under Operation Sindhu.

MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, answering questions at a briefing, said that since India launched Operation Sindhu on June 18, the government has so far evacuated from Iran, 3,426 Indian nationals, 11 OCI card holders, nine Nepalese nationals and some Sri Lankan nationals, in addition to an Iranian national who happens to be a spouse of an Indian national.

“We have around 10,000 people of Indian community members in Iran. Around 40,000 people in Israel who are Indian nationals. India has mounted 14 flights to bring back Indian nationals from Iran.

...These flights flew from Mashhad as also from Yerevan in Armenia and Ashgabat in Turkmenistan,” he said, adding that one more flight is on its way from Armenia and will land later tonight.

“With that, we would have completed all the people who wish to be evacuated from Iran, and they would be back home,” he said.

On Israel, the spokesperson said that India has so far evacuated 818 Indian nationals in four flights.

“As you are aware, the airspace in Israel was closed. So, we had to take our people to bordering countries, that is Jordan and Egypt. And from both these countries, they were put on special flights and they came back home.”

He said India is thankful to the governments of Egypt, Jordan for the support. The Indian embassies in Israel, Jordan, Egypt collaborated very closely with the Ministry Headquarters here in mounting this operation.

“And once again, we would like to thank the governments of Israel, Jordan and Egypt for the support in Operation Sindhu. But we would also like to thank the Government of Iran. As you would know that we made a request and they opened their airspace for us to evacuate our nationals. We are grateful to the Government of Iran for this special gesture. We are also thankful to the government of Turkmenistan and Armenia for helping us evacuate our people,” the spokesperson said.

India also got requests from the governments of Sri Lanka and Nepal to help evacuate their nationals.

On the Indians evacuated Iran, he said they are mostly students, workers and pilgrims. They also included 50 fishermen from Tamil Nadu.

UNI RN