NEW DELHI: For the first time, two top officials, Army Chief General M M Naravane and Foreign Secretary H V Shringla will visit Myanmar together on a two-day visit beginning on Sunday. During the visit, the delegation will call on Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar armed forces commander-in-chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.
An official statement said “India attaches high priority to its relationship with Myanmar in accordance with its ‘Neighborhood First’ and ‘Act East’ policies. In recent times, both sides have strengthened their cooperation in several areas, including connectivity and trade, development projects, energy, capacity building, defense and security and culture, and people to people links.” The visit is significant given the ongoing tension along the LAC.
Sources said India wants to strengthen its relations with its neighbors so that in the event of another standoff like Doklam, New Delhi isn’t isolated in its own backyard. “India wants to make sure that it keeps its neighbors in good stead, especially during times when tensions with China are high. Also, after Nepal altered its map, the neighborhood's first policy seemed to be crumbling. This visit, amid the tensions and following similar such engagements with neighbors, can be seen an attempt to fix the possible damage,” a research scholar in JNU said.
The visit by the two top officials comes soon after the India-Sri Lanka virtual summit meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Sri Lankan counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa on September 26 and Shringla’s trip to Bangladesh in mid-August. During a virtual foreign office consultation between India and Myanmar on Thursday, Shringla said “despite the challenges caused by the COVID pandemic, we are working towards operationalizing the Sitwe port by the first quarter of next year.”