“India is willing to march with ASEAN to fulfil promise and potential of our strategic engagement”, said the Prime Minister, wearing crisp white churidar, kurta and jacket.
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Addressing the eleventh East Asia Summit at Vientiane in Laos today, Mr. Modi said, the time has come to isolate and sanction this global instigator and exporter of terror.
He also proposed Joint Task Force on connectivity to work on extension of India-Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. There could be more “pull aside” talks with leaders, officials said. Modi held extensive bilateral meeting with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe on Wednesday.
Obama made two historic visits to Malaysia, and Najib was famously caught on camera playing golf with Obama in Hawaii in December 2014.
Japan’s maritime self-defence force and the Indian and USA navies conducted Malabar joint maritime security exercises in June and Japanese and Indian defence ministers agreed in July to repeat the joint drill next year.
Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria, hitting back at Modi’s statement, said: “India is in fact that single nation”.
Our strongest action should be reserved for those state actors who employ terrorism as an instrument of State Policy.There is one country in our neighbourhood whose competitive advantage rests exclusively in producing & exporting terrorismThis export is reducing space for peace & increasing space for violence. “Our partnership with ASEAN seeks to craft a response through coordination, cooperation at multiple levels”.
India supports freedom of navigation based on United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), he added.
An worldwide arbitration tribunal at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in July ruled in favour of the Philippines in its dispute with China over the South China Sea.
Modi held parleys with the Laos premier on the sidelines of the meetings.
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The US has been playing a lead role in supporting India’s bid in the 48-member elite group.
