Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a swipe at neighboring Pakistan on Thursday (Sept 8) in an address at the East Asia Summit, accusing his country’s arch rival of exporting terrorism and calling for its worldwide isolation. “Our partnership with ASEAN seeks to craft a response through coordination, cooperation at multiple levels”, Modi said in his address to ASEAN leaders. Obama and Modi have focused on climate change in their past meetings, so it was likely they would discuss further it during the East Asia Summit.
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Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale said on Monday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is looking forward to visit Pakistan in November to attend SAARC summit, learnt 24 News.
His comments came amid reports that Modi might keep away from the Saarc Summit in view of the rising tensions between India and Pakistan, particularly over Jammu and Kashmir.
In his ASEAN-India Summit speech, Modi mentioned that India’s strategic partnership with ASEAN covers security, economic & socio-cultural spheres.
Earlier in the day, Modi met with host and Laos Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith.
Their meeting took place in the backdrop of steady decline in the relations over China’s technical hold in United Nations over banning Pakistan-based terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar and Beijing stalling India’s bid to gain members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) besides CPEC.
Taking a dig at Modi, Kumar said: “Their Pakistan policy in reality is zero policy”.
The summits will be attended by Heads of State and Government of the 10 ASEAN and 18 East Asia Summit Participating Countries, respectively.
“There’s one country in our neighbourhood whose competitive advantage rests exclusively in producing and exporting terrorism”, Mr. Modi said in his address at the East Asia Summit (EAS), without naming Pakistan.
After the NDA government turned the UPA government’s Look East Policy into Act East Policy, New Delhi has been working on a number of projects to improve connectivity with southeast Asia, the key projects being the India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway and the Kaladan multi-modal transport project connecting the Sittwe port in Myanmar with Mizoram in northeast India.
Obama said that he had always been a friend of India and would continue to be a “strong partner of India and help in any way I can”, according to sources.
PM Narendra Modi also had bilateral meeting with South Korean President Park Guen-Hye. “In particular, the U.S. president expressed confidence that the passage of GST will unleash significant economic activity”, sources said.
Both leaders reviewed the immediate priorities in the strategic partnership.
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As part of the major country relations, the USA and China have now over 90 dialogue mechanism at Vice Ministerial level and 170 at the Director General level to discuss a host of contentious issue, he said, adding that compared to that India-China have only about 35.
