Indian Army Chief General MM Naravane and Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla are set to travel to Naypyidaw to seal a shipping agreement and cement security ties against insurgent groups on Sunday.
Shringla and General Naravane will meet with senior General Min Aung Hlaing and Aung San Suu Kyi, state counsellor of Myanmar, as the last incoming foreign visitors ahead of the Myanmar general elections on November 8, reports Hindustan Times.
The rehabilitation of the Rohingya refugees is going to be discussed, with India already discussing ways to facilitate the return of the refugees to Myanmar. All three countries do not want Pakistan-based Islamist groups to infiltrate into the Rohingya refugee settlements on the Bangladesh-Myanmar border and radicalize them, the newspaper said.
The Indian army chief and foreign secretary are set to comprehensively review ties with Myanmar leadership to ensure there is no discrepancy in exchange of views, said south block officials quoted by the Indian daily.
They also said the two countries will make the India-Myanmar border impenetrable to “anti-India insurgents and drug smugglers,” reportedly based across the Moreh border in Manipur and parts of Arunachal Pradesh.
The insurgents are armed with Chinese weapons with leaders such as Paresh Baruah of the ULFA in Yunnan province of China. The border is also used to smuggle drugs such as yaba and heroin, said Hindustan Times.
The two countries will also discuss cooperation in the energy sector with New Delhi already investing more than $1.4 billion dollars into the development of hydrocarbon-rich off-shore blocks in the Andaman Seas, the newspaper said.
Myanmar leadership has said its ties with China cannot be at the cost of the bilateral relationship with India, even though there is a significant presence of China in Myanmar in the infrastructure, hydrocarbon, power and ports sector.