Indian foreign minister Jaishankar defends ties with Myanmar junta

GBNEWS24DESK//

India’s foreign minister on Thursday defended his country’s ties with the Myanmar junta, despite growing international concerns about recent executions and the legitimacy of elections planned for 2023.

Myanmar’s decade-long experiment with democracy was halted last year and the country has since spiralled into bloody conflict after the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government in a coup, reports AFP.

It has become a global pariah, with some western countries downgrading relations and levelling economic sanctions against the junta.

But India, China and Russia have continued to engage with the regime, including conducting ministerial visits.

Indian minister of external affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said that New Delhi’s position on Myanmar had been consistent over decades and goes back to the country’s struggle for freedom against colonialism.

‘Our relationship is not something which should be judged… by the politics of the day,’ Jaishankar told an audience at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.

As a direct neighbour India could not avoid dealing with the military junta regime because of border issues such as organised crime, coronavirus and Indian insurgents in Myanmar, he said.

‘We also have to manage our border relationship and the complexities of being a neighbour,’ he said.