24th India ASEAN Meeting

India ASEAN meeting UPSC: Relevance

• GS 2: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.

India ASEAN relations: Context

• Recently, India has hosted the 24^th India ASEAN meeting in New Delhi to mark two major anniversaries — the 30th anniversary of India’s dialogue relations and the 10th anniversary of Strategic Partnership with ASEAN.

24th India ASEAN Meeting: Key points

• The two day Special ASEAN-India Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (SAIFMM) will be attended by all Foreign Ministers of other ASEAN Member States.
• 2022 has been designated as the ASEAN-India friendship year.
• This is the first time SAIFMM will host in New Delhi the ASEAN-India FMM meeting. Also the 24^thASEAN-India Senior Officials meeting took place in New Delhi.
• Also, the 12^thedition of Delhi Dialogue (DD) was followed the SAIFMM in New Delhi.
• Theme of Delhi Dialogue: Building Bridges in the Indo-Pacific

What is Delhi Dialogue?

• Delhi Dialogue is a Track 1.5 dialogue between India and ASEAN.
• Delhi Dialogue brings together practitioners, corporate leaders, opinion makers, academics and journalists, every year, to discuss a wide range of issues of common interest and concern in India – ASEAN relationship.

India ASEAN dialogue:  A historical background

• In 1992, a sectoral partnership was established, which eventually transformed into full dialogue partnership in December 1995.
• The relation reached Summit Level Partnership in 2002 and in 2012 Strategic partnership.
• In 2020, Plan of Action 2021-2025 was adopted, which forms the foundation of the ongoing India-ASEAN collaboration.

24^th ASEAN India meeting

• The focus of the meeting was to review the progress of cooperation under all three pillars of Partnership –economic and socio-cultural, political-security.
• The meeting was also aimed at taking steps for further implementation of ASEAN-India Plan of Action (2021-2025).
• Moreover, emphasis was also put for the implementation of ASEAN-India Joint Statement on Cooperation on ASEAN Outlook on Indo-Pacific (AOIP).

24th India ASEAN Meeting: Absence of Myanmar

• Myanmar was not a part of the 24^thASEAN-India Ministerial meeting that was held in New Delhi.
• Reasons: International pressure to avoid inclusion of Myanmar in the high-level meetings, and souring of ASEAN-Myanmar ties after military coup that overthrew democratic government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
• The non-participation of Myanmar is being interpreted as India accommodating international concern over the junta in Myanmar which has refused to enter into a negotiation with the protesters demanding restoration of democracy.
• Earlier, Myanmar had participated in the BIMSTEC summit in a virtual format that had drawn criticism from the United States.

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