Indian fleet calling Myanmar port

Xinhuanet 2002-12-21 00:13:15

YANGON, Dec. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- A fleet of Indian naval vessels arrived at Myanmar's Thilawa Port in Yangon Friday evening, beginning a three-day visit at the port, diplomatic sources here said on Saturday.

The Indian naval fleet comprises of a submarine and two destroyers. It is the first time for an Indian naval fleet to visit Myanmar port since a similar call at the country's Yangon port by a Pakistani naval fleet in April 2001, which was the first time for Myanmar to permit a foreign naval fleet to visit the country in several decades.

In recent years, especially after Myanmar's entry into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in July 1997, India has strengthened its bilateral relations with Myanmar in all fields as part of its "look-east" policy.

During the past eight years, exchange of visits between military authorities of the two countries amounted to 20 times, with Myanmar military delegations going to India for eight times.

The 12 tours to Myanmar by Indian military delegations included those made by the Chief of the Army Staff, Chief of the Air Staff and Chief of the Navy Staff and Chairman of Chiefs of Staff Committee.

According to the Indian News Annual published by the Indian Embassy here, inrecent years, there has been a further intensification of relations between defense forces of the two countries with a progressively large number of Myanmar defense personnel going to India for training and the border units of the two armies meeting twice a year at the border to ensure peace and tranquillity along the 1,400-kilometer-long front.

Meanwhile, since April this year, Myanmar and India have been jointly conducting oceanographic study in the Andaman Sea under the first ever program of its kind of the two countries.