PM Modi meets State Counsellor of Myanmar Aung San Suu Kyi

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi  : Prime Minister Narendra Modi met State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar on the margins of the ASEAN-India Summit on November 3, 2019. Recalling his last visit to Myanmar in September 2017 and the visit of the State Counsellor to India during the ASEAN-India commemorative Summit in January 2018, the two leaders expressed satisfaction at the progress of the vital partnership between the two countries.

PM Modi emphasised the priority India attaches to Myanmar as a partner at the crossroads of India’s Look East Policy and the Neighbourhood First policies. Towards this end, he emphasised on India’s continuing commitment to improve physical connectivity to and through Myanmar to Southeast Asia through building road, port and other infrastructure. India would also continue to strongly support the expansion of capacity for Myanmar’s police, military and civil servants, as well as its students and citizens, according to a PIB release.

The two leaders agreed that people to people connectivity would help expand the base of the partnership and therefore welcomed the expansion of air connectivity between the two countries and the growing interest of India’s businesses in Myanmar, including the plans of the Government of India to host a business event for the CLMV countries (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam) at Yangon at the end of November 2019.

State Counsellor Suu Kyi reaffirmed the importance her Government attached to the partnership with India, and her appreciation of India’s consistent and sustained support for the widening of democracy and deepening of development in Myanmar.

With regard to the situation in Rakhine, following the completion of the first Indian project to build 250 prefabricated houses–which were handed over to the Myanmar Government this July, the PM expressed India’s readiness to carry out more socio-economic projects in this State. He emphasized that the speedy, safe, and sustainable return from Bangladesh of displaced people to their homes in Rakhine State was in the interests of the region, the displaced persons, and all three neighbouring States: India, Bangladesh and Myanmar.