New Delhi, Nov. 26: Never mind the observer status, the invite clearly reflects India’s growing global profile.

And Delhi is pleased, too: it’s been 16 years since it took part in a West Asia peace conference. Which is why it has sent Kapil Sibal, a cabinet minister, to the US-organised talks over the next couple of days.

The science and technology minister has arrived in Washington to attend a dinner organised by the White House tonight, after which the conference moves to a nearby town called Annapolis.

Sibal, a key member of the government’s defence team on the civil nuclear deal with America, is likely to meet senior officials like secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, the person behind the conference.

Syria and Saudi Arabia will also attend the meet, besides organisations like the Arab League and the World Bank, though Hamas, the group that controls the Gaza Strip, and Iran, a key player in West Asia, have not been invited.

Critics say India, which has lost substantial influence with the Palestinian Authority in recent years and has little access to Hamas because of its growing alliance with the US, is hardly likely to make a major contribution to the talks. The invite, they concede, came mainly because of Delhi’s apparent closeness to the Bush administration.

Sources said Delhi’s decision to send a cabinet minister to the conference was an attempt to blunt domestic criticism of India’s unwillingness to promote a variety of international relationships at the same time.

In 1991, though — when India participated as a member of the political committee on the Madrid peace talks in the run-up to the conference — things were different, say officials of the ministry of external affairs.

The Soviet Union was about to break up, the US was emerging as the sole superpower, and India had just established diplomatic relations with Israel.

Today, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are the stars of the show.

Both sides admit that the Annapolis talks are only a beginning as substantive issues, which have eluded consensus for decades, still need to be sorted out.