NEW DELHI: Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with India’s prime minister and foreign secretary yesterday as part of a trip to establish closer ties between the countries.
Suu Kyi, who arrived Tuesday for a five-day visit, met separately with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai. Details of the meetings were not immediately available.
In the 1980s and early ‘90s, India was a strong supporter of Suu Kyi in her struggle against the country’s military junta for which she received the Nobel Peace Prize. But in the mid-1990s, India changed tack to engage with the junta, resisting pressure from Western democracies that had imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar.
New Delhi insisted it had to follow a pragmatic policy because it needed its neighbor’s help in cracking down on Indian rebels who had built hideouts in the jungles along the India-Myanmar border. The new policy also underscored India’s quest for energy supplies and concerns about China’s strong influence in the Southeast Asian country.
In an interview published Tuesday in an Indian newspaper, Suu Kyi said she hoped her visit would bring India and Myanmar closer. “I feel that perhaps in recent years we’ve grown apart as peoples, because India took a road which is different from ours, or rather we changes routes. I’d like to see a closer relationship between our two peoples,” she said in the interview.
Suu Kyi also visited the memorials of Indian independence leaders Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru yesterday.
Singh invited Suu Kyi to deliver the lecture when he met with her in Myanmar’s main city of Yangon in May.
Her visit is an emotional one because Suu Kyi spent several years in India as a student in the early 1960s while her mother was ambassador to India. Her itinerary includes a visit to her old college in New Delhi on Friday.
“I’d like to see the old places, the places where I spent time as a teenager,” she told the newspaper. She last visited India in the 1980s.
Suu Kyi is to meet Today with Vice President Hamid Ansari, Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid and Speaker of Parliament Meira Kumar. She also is to visit Parliament and travel to southern India to see rural development projects and women’s empowerment programs, according to India’s Foreign Ministry.
Suu Kyi urges Indian support for democracy in Myanmar
Suu Kyi urges Indian support for democracy in Myanmar
South Korea calls for resuming dialogue with North
- President Lee Jae Myung has sought to mend ties with the nuclear-armed North since taking office in June
- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last week dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul
SEOUL: South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called on Sunday for dialogue with North Korea to resume, after Pyongyang last week shunned the prospect of diplomacy with its neighbor.
Since taking office in June, a dovish Lee has sought to mend ties with the nuclear-armed North, which reaffirmed its anti-Seoul approach during a party meeting last week.
“As my administration has repeatedly made clear, we respect the North’s system and will neither engage in any type of hostile acts, nor pursue any form of unification by absorption,” Lee said in a speech marking the anniversary of a historical campaign against Japan’s colonial rule.
“We will also continue our efforts to resume dialogue with the North,” he said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last week dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, describing its overtures as “clumsy, deceptive farce and a poor work.”
Speaking at the party congress in Pyongyang, Kim said North Korea has “absolutely no business dealing with South Korea, its most hostile entity, and will permanently exclude South Korea from the category of compatriots.”
But he also said the North could “get along well” with the United States if Washington acknowledges its nuclear status.
Speculation has mounted over whether US President Donald Trump will seek a meeting with Kim during planned travels to China.
Last year, Trump said he was “100 percent” open to a meeting.
Previous Trump-Kim summits during the US president’s first term fell apart after the pair failed to agree over sanctions relief — and what nuclear concessions North Korea might make in return.
