India For Continued Engagement With Myanmar Ahead Of PM Modi's Manila Visit

India has reiterated that isolating Myanmar is not the answer, just days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to travel to Manila for the ASEAN-India Summit and the East Asia Summit. Myanmar's civil war, now in its sixth year, is testing India and the ASEAN bloc."On Myanmar, our position has been very clear. If we isolate Myanmar, it is not the correct approach because someone else will fill that vacuum.

"There is no alternative to engagement," said Rudrendra Tandon, Secretary (East) in the Ministry of External Affairs here on Thursday. "We strongly support ASEAN engagement with Myanmar. Myanmar is a country with a complex society.

"It is crucial to be patient and to engage with Myanmar," he added.The comments come as Myanmar's position in the region is changing. The junta's leaders have been banned from attending ASEAN leaders' summits since the military seized power in February 2021, igniting a civil war, and this has become the defining feature of the bloc's response to Naypyidaw.That isolation now seems to be fading.