News from India Newspaper (r)

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"Top Indian official in Burma for talks"

"The Asian Age" Newspaper (India)
Date February 26, 1999.

New Delhi, Feb. 25: Indian foreign secretary K. Raghunath left on
Thursday for Burma to continue what a senior official described as the
"quiet diplomacy" the two countries" the two countries have been pursing
for some time. There was no fixed agenda for Mr. Raghunath's talks with
Burma's deputy minister for foreign affairs U Khin Maung Win, said the
official, who did not wish to be identified. "Everything on earth will
be discussed. We don?t have much regular contact and it is not an
institutional system of bilateral ties," he said.
Bilateral, political, economic, international and foreign and region
issues would be discussed by the two sides, he added. This is the first
high level Indian visit to Burma since then minister of state for
external affairs Saleem Sherwani had visited Rangoon in November 1997 to
inaugurate the Indian Trade Exhibition.
Foreign secretary J. N. Dixit had made a breakthrough visit to Rangoon
in March 1993 after a review by New Delhi of its policy towards the
Southeast Asian neighbour with the country shares a common land border.
Mr. Dixit's visited was followed by that of his Burmese counterpart in
January 1994. In December 1986, then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had
visited Burma, but after the military takeover there the relations got
strained as India criticized the military junta.  (AFP)