PM Modi, Myanmar President discuss issue of insurgent groups operating from Southeast Asian nation

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday raised the issue of the activities of Indian insurgent groups operating in the Southeast Asian nation during the bilateral talks with Myanmar President U Min Aung Hlaing in New Delhi.

Addressing reporters following the meeting between the two leaders, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said that the visiting President reaffirmed Myanmar’s commitment to addressing these concerns and assured New Delhi that necessary steps would be taken to prevent such a group from posing a threat to India’s security.

“There is the very important question of the activities of Indian insurgent groups in Myanmar close to our borders. And this is something, again, that the Prime Minister raised with the President, and the President once again reiterated his assurance that Myanmar was sensitive to these concerns and again would do everything necessary to ensure that there was action against these, and these did not become a cause of threat against the security of India,” Misri stated.

Addressing questions on Myanmar’s internal stability, Misri highlighted ongoing hostilities between the military and ethnic armed groups in the Southeast Asian nation while underlining the efforts by Myanmar authorities to foster dialogue among different stakeholders to build a broader national consensus.

“The other aspect of internal security is obviously the effort by the Myanmar state to bring all the ethnic armed organisations and groups onto a single platform to advance the peace process. This is essentially an effort to see how the current structure of governance or the system of government that Myanmar has, what kinds of changes might be needed in that so that something is crafted around which there is broad national consensus and then move forward on that basis,” he added.

Highlighting the broader regional significance for peace and stability in Myanmar, Misri said that developments in the country have implications not only for India’s security and connectivity interests but also for the cohesion of ASEAN, of which Myanmar is an important member.

“And this is something in which we have– we obviously have an interest because, as I have said, you know, stability and peace in Myanmar are obviously a major interest for India. It is not just for the security of the northeast and the safety and security of people living along the 1643 kilometre long border that we have with them but also for our interests, such as connectivity to Southeast Asia. And obviously security and stability in Myanmar are also important for the coherence of ASEAN as a whole as well, because Myanmar is an important and large country within the ASEAN framework as well,” he stated.

IANS