 "PM Modi unlikely to attend ASEAN summit in Malaysia; Jaishankar to represent India")
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlikely to attend the upcoming ASEAN summit in Malaysia, scheduled from October 26 to 28, PTI quoted sources familiar with the matter as saying on Wednesday. The External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will instead lead India’s delegation at the meetings.
While the official details of India’s participation have not been released, there remains a possibility that PM Modi could join the ASEAN-India summit virtually. The prime minister has led the Indian delegations at the ASEAN-India summit and the East Asia Summit in the last few years.
India is learnt to have conveyed to Malaysia that Jaishankar will represent India at the ASEAN meetings, the people cited above told PTI.
Malaysia has invited US President Donald Trump as well as leaders of several countries which are the dialogue partners of the ASEAN. Trump is set to travel to Kuala Lumpur on October 26 on a two-day trip.
The ASEAN-India dialogue relations started with the establishment of a sectoral partnership in 1992. This graduated to full dialogue partnership in December 1995 and summit level partnership in 2002.
The ties were elevated to a strategic partnership in 2012.
The 10 member countries of ASEAN are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia.
The two-way relations between India and ASEAN have been on a significant upswing in the last few years with focus being on boosting cooperation in the areas of trade and investment as well as security and defence.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsAccording to the initial plan, a visit by PM Modi to Cambodia along with Malaysia was being contemplated. However, as he is not travelling to Malaysia, the planned trip to Cambodia stands postponed, the people cited above said.
With inputs from agencies
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