HANTILLY, France: French President Emmanuel Macron has met with India’s prime minister, discussing climate and other concerns ahead of the G-7 summit but also pressing for dialogue with Pakistan over the crisis in Kashmir.
The meeting Thursday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi was part of a marathon day of diplomacy for Macron, who is touching base with key countries before the weekend summit in Biarritz. Modi will be a special guest there.
Macron met earlier Thursday with new British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Greece’s prime minister.
Macron said he stressed the need for India and Pakistan to resolve differences bilaterally and avoid an escalation.
On Aug. 5, Modi downgraded the autonomy of Muslim-majority Kashmir and sent thousands of troops to the region.
Modi made no mention of Kashmir in his statement.
France presses India to opt for dialogue in Kashmir crisis
France presses India to opt for dialogue in Kashmir crisis
- Emmanuel Macron stressed India and Pakistan to avoid escalation
- On Aug. 5, India downgraded the autonomy of Muslim-majority Kashmir and put the disputed region under security lockdown
Sequestered Suu Kyi overshadows military-run Myanmar election
- Suu Kyi’s reputation abroad has been heavily tarnished over her government’s handling of the Rohingya crisis
YANGON: Ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been siloed in military detention since a 2021 coup, but her absence looms large over junta-run polls the generals are touting as a return to democracy.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate was once the darling of foreign diplomats, with legions of supporters at home and a reputation for redeeming Myanmar from a history of iron-fisted martial rule.
Her followers swept a landslide victory in Myanmar’s last elections in 2020 but the military voided the vote, dissolved her National League for Democracy party and has jailed her in total seclusion.
As she disappeared and a decade-long democratic experiment was halted, activists rose up — first as street protesters and then as guerrilla rebels battling the military in an all-consuming civil war.
Suu Kyi’s reputation abroad has been heavily tarnished over her government’s handling of the Rohingya crisis.
But for her many followers in Myanmar, her name is still a byword for democracy, and her absence on the ballot, an indictment it will be neither free nor fair.
The octogenarian — known in Myanmar as “The Lady” and famed for wearing flowers in her hair — remains under lock and key as her junta jailers hold polls overwriting her 2020 victory. The second of the three-phase election began Sunday, with Suu Kyi’s constituency of Kawhmu outside Yangon being contested by parties cleared to run in the heavily restricted poll.
Suu Kyi has spent around two decades of her life in military detention — but in a striking contradiction, she is the daughter of the founder of Myanmar’s armed forces.
She was born on June 19, 1945, in Japanese-occupied Yangon during the final weeks of WWII.
Her father, Aung San, fought for and against both the British and the Japanese colonizers as he sought to secure independence for his country.
