New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday (June 16) welcomed progress towards peace efforts in West Asia but said the conflict had cost Indian lives and disrupted global trade through the Strait of Hormuz, in remarks delivered at a G7 outreach session where he sat alongside US President Donald Trump during their first in-person encounter in 16 months.Trump was already present at the venue of a G7 outreach session in France’s Evian when the PM arrived there, following which the two leaders shook hands. Modi was also seen laughing in response to remarks made by the president.In the subsequent outreach session, on the theme of ‘Forging new Partnerships and rebuilding international solidarity’, Modi was flanked by Trump and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the venue’s roundtable.Towards the end of his address, Modi said, “We welcome the progress made towards peace efforts in West Asia.”Referring to the impact of the conflict, he said countries in the region had suffered losses and that disruptions to maritime trade through the Strait of Hormuz had imposed costs on economies worldwide.“Many Indian citizens have lost their lives,” Modi said, but did not identify any country by name or specify the incidents in which Indian citizens had died.“It is our responsibility to protect seafarers who connect countries through global maritime trade,” he added.Neither Modi’s references to Indian deaths nor his remarks on disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz were reflected in the Ministry of External Affairs’s readout of his intervention, which instead focused on broader themes of trust, international cooperation and respect for international law.The first part of Modi’s speech centred on what he described as a growing crisis of trust in international affairs.“Today, the most important strategic asset is not minerals, technology or markets, but mutual trust,” he said, arguing that partnerships could succeed only when trust was at their core.Modi said countries needed confidence that “technology and supply chains will not be used as weapons, but for global welfare”, that development opportunities would not remain confined to a handful of countries and that global institutions would be capable of meeting the aspirations of all nations.“The world is not suffering from a deficit of resources; it is suffering from a deficit of trust,” he said. Referring to the COVID-19 pandemic, Modi argued that it had exposed “how hollow the claims of trust and solidarity were”.Quoting former US President Ronald Reagan’s dictum, “Trust, but verify”, Modi said the international community had a responsibility to build “a credible rules-based order suited to a new era” for future generations.Modi and Trump are expected to hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G7 summit on Wednesday.The two leaders were perceived as enjoying a warm relationship during Trump’s first term but bilateral ties have come under strain during the president’s second stint in office.Most recently India last week twice summoned the US charge d’affaires as the American navy, carrying out its blockade of Iranian ports, attacked three Indian-crewed vessels in the Gulf, in one instance killing three Indian seafarers.Modi has not publicly reacted to those attacks, and his remarks in Evian did not explicitly link the deaths he referred to with the incidents involving the Indian-crewed vessels.External affairs minister S. Jaishankar after the summonings phoned his counterpart Marco Rubio to reiterate India’s strong protest over the ‘unjustified’ lethal attacks. In its readout the US state department did not mention New Delhi’s protests but called for compliance with its blockade, effectively rejecting the thrust of the Indian objections.Washington and Tel Aviv’s decision to launch their war on Iran earlier this year has, primarily by way of Tehran’s retaliatory blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, disrupted India’s energy supplies, given that 90% of its LPG imports and 55% of its crude oil inflows had transited the waterway during peacetime.Another point of tension in the relationship was the US’s 50% tariff on India imposed last year, half of it a ‘penalty’ for Indian imports of Russian oil. In February Trump announced the two sides would strike a trade deal in exchange for lower tariffs, saying Modi had requested it and agreed to stop buying crude from Russia as well as potentially buy Venezuelan oil in the future.Earlier, Trump claimed to have ended the India-Pakistan military conflict of May last year by threatening the warring sides with steep tariffs. New Delhi has insisted that the fighting ended at Pakistan’s request, and Modi phoned the US president to reject his account of events.According to the New York Times, the tense phone call “played an outsize role in the souring relationship between the two leaders”, according to people familiar with the conversation.Trump has at any rate repeatedly claimed to have ended the conflict, an assertion that Pakistan on the other hand has publicly agreed with. Islamabad has since gone on to mediate between Washington and Tehran amid the West Asia conflict and is set to preside over the formal signing ceremony of their memorandum of understanding in Geneva on Friday.Modi holds bilateral meetings with Canada’s Carney, British PM StarmerAfter the outreach meeting Modi held a bilateral meeting with his Canadian opposite number Mark Carney, where the two leaders “welcomed the positive momentum” in relations and reaffirmed their end-of-year deadline for pursuing a free-trade deal.Their meeting, the second this year after Carney’s state visit to India, comes as Indo-Canadian ties undergo a reset after souring in 2023-24 following the former Justin Trudeau government’s allegations that agents of the Indian government played a role in killing Khalistani separatist Hardeep Nijjar near Vancouver as well as in other “widespread violence” on Canadian soil.Significantly, an unnamed senior Canadian official had told the media prior to Carney’s India visit that Ottawa no longer believes India is engaged in transnational repression on Canadian soil and was confident the activity had stopped.Later on Tuesday Modi also held a bilateral meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer as well as with with Emirati President Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, and was scheduled to attend a gala dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron at night.This story was updated with more information at 12:32 am on Wednesday.