May 11 date set for Modi’s Nepal visit

FOREIGN MINISTER SWARAJ WILL TRAVEL TO MYANMAR ON MAY 10 FOR A TWODAY TRIP

NEWDELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Nepal on a two-day visit on May 11 while external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj will travel to Myanmar, also on a two-day visit, on May 10, the ministry’s official spokesperson, Raveesh Kumar, said on Thursday.

HT had first reported that the PM would travel to Nepal, his third during his tenure but first after the promulgation of the new Nepali constitution in 2015.

This comes barely a month after Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s three-day visit to India in April. Oli was accompanied by his wife Radhika Shakya and an entourage of ministers, members of Parliament, secretaries and other high-ranking officials of Nepal government.

He had highlighted India’s commitment to link Nepal with the waterways along with the railway’s links to increase the connectivity.

During Oli’s visit, both India and Nepal recognised t he untapped potential of inland waterways, in order to contribute towards the overall economic development of the region

Swaraj will pay a two-day visit to Myanmar from May 10 during which key bilateral and regional issues, including the situation in the Rakhine state from where hundreds of thousands of persecuted Rohingya Muslims had fled following violence last year, are likely to be discussed.

Swaraj would hold talks with the top leadership of Myanmar and both sides were expected to ink several key agreements, the MEA spokesperson said.

VISIT OF EXPERTS TO PAK NORMAL, SAYS MEA

The spokesperson termed as “normal” the visit of a group of Indian experts to Pakistan to revive Track II diplomacy, but asserted that there was no dilution in its policy towards Islamabad that talks and terror cannot go hand-in-hand.

“This is a meeting between two civil societies, this is a meeting which is part of people to people exchange...there is nothing new in it,” he told reporters, responding to queries on the issue.