Myanmar President U Min Aung Hlaing assured Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday that Myanmar’s territory “would not be permitted to be used against India’s security interests”.
In the past, India has repeatedly expressed concern over Northeast insurgent groups operating from within Myanmar.
Briefing reporters after the bilateral meeting, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri underlined that “stability and peace in Myanmar is a major interest for India”.
Min Aung Hlaing is visiting India from May 30 to June 3 — his first visit since taking over as President. The former chief of the military junta government was elected President on April 3, five years after he grabbed power in a coup, ousting an elected government.
Misri said the leaders discussed cooperation on defence and security, critical minerals and rare earth, and connectivity projects.
Modi also raised the issue of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who is in detention in Myanmar since the military coup in 2021.
“The Prime Minister reaffirmed India’s support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, and both sides underscored the importance of preventing the misuse of sovereign territory for activities inimical to their security interests. The President of Myanmar, in particular, reiterated the assurance that Myanmar’s territory would not be permitted to be used against India’s security interests,” Misri said.
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“The 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 something in which we obviously have an interest, because stability and peace in Myanmar is a major interest for India, not just for the security of the Northeast and the safety and security of people living along the 1,643-km-long border that we have with them, but also for our interests, such as connectivity to Southeast Asia,” Misri said.
“Security and stability in Myanmar is also important for the coherence of ASEAN as a whole, because Myanmar is an important and large country within the ASEAN framework,” he said, outlining the regional dimension.
“Apart from that, there is the very important question of the activities of Indian insurgent groups in Myanmar close to our borders, and this is something that the Prime Minister raised with the President. The President once again reiterated his assurance that Myanmar was sensitive to these concerns, and would do everything necessary to ensure that there was action on these, and these don’t become a cause of threat against the security of India,” he said.
Responding to questions on Suu Kyi, Misri said: “The Prime Minister did raise this matter with the President, and this was a discussion that was largely in the context of the peace process… in the context of the points that the Prime Minister was making on the need for… inclusion, the need to have all stakeholders at the table and to examine the points of views of all the interlocutors who have been part of this process… it was a bit of a freewheeling discussion on that issue, and that is where issues related to democracy were also raised.”
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Underlining that the engagement with Myanmar is “not intended to be a commentary on its internal political arrangements”, Misri said: “We have always proceeded on the principle that sustained dialogue is what is important and… an imperative for India as a neighbour… the answer is clearly not disengagement… So we have consistently engaged, and while engaging, we have always put forward our thoughts on all of these issues related to democracy, the peace process, inclusion, and the absolute importance of having all stakeholders as part of the dialogue at the table.”
“We have always believed that eventually the difficulties that face Myanmar will have to be sorted out by the people of Myanmar talking among themselves. This will have to be a Myanmar-led solution and a Myanmar-owned solution,” he said.
On defence cooperation, Misri said the focus is on “training”, “capacity building”, institution building, and UN peacekeeping. “…we have a 1,643-km-long border. There are important defence and security related interests in the context of that border, and that is also something that gets discussed when various mechanisms related to defence cooperation get together,” he said.
Misri also said that over the last year-and-a-half, over 2,400 Indian citizens have been repatriated from cyber scam compounds within Myanmar. “As of now, we have over 150-odd Indian citizens that we know of… who are still stuck in some of these cyber scam compounds… we are in touch with the Myanmar government to try and repatriate them as well,” he said.
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On the two major connectivity-related projects — the Kaladan multimodal transit transport project and India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway project — Misri said: “These projects have been underway for several years, and they have been delayed… Right now, the obstacle that faces both these projects is the security situation in Myanmar. The Kaladan highway is in an area where there are active hostilities going on between the Myanmar Army and ethnic armies in Rakhine state; the section of the trilateral highway where work was underway is in an area where ethnic armed groups are quite active… Nevertheless, we have continued to engage with the Myanmar authorities, and wherever there has been a possibility to take forward the work by utilising either lulls in fighting or by making sure that the security of the workers is not going to be impacted, we have been able to move forward, but this is something that that remains a major priority. It was raised by the Prime Minister today, and the President once again gave his assurance that Myanmar would do everything to ensure these projects move forward towards completion,” he said.
Modi also conveyed that the Mekong Ganga ICCR scholarships for Myanmar students would be enhanced from 36 to 100 from 2026.
The Myanmar President, who arrived in Delhi on Saturday after visiting Bodh Gaya, also met President Droupadi Murmu, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. He will head to Mumbai on Tuesday.
