Sushma Swaraj to Pay Two-day Visit to Myanmar from May 10

New Delhi: External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj will visit Myanmar next week, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced on Thursday.

Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said that the minister would be going from May 10-11, keeping in tandem with the interaction that the governments of both countries have.

The minister, he added, will hold discussions on various bilateral issues and also review the progress made on the agreements and decisions taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to the country in September last year. "Key agreements are also expected to be signed," Kumar added.

While there was no direct word on the status of India's status of Rohingyas, Kumar said that India welcomed the agreement between Myanmar and Bangladesh and that it strongly believed that normalcy in Rakhine needed to be restored. "Socio economic development is the long term solution to the problem," he added. India is also a key partner for Myanmar in terms of infrastructure with many projects in the pipeline, including trilateral highway project connecting India, Thailand and Myanmar.

The announcement of the minister's visit comes just days after Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina urged India, China, Russia and Japan to provide major support to resolve the Rohingya crisis.

Around 6,00,000 Rohingyas fled Rakhine State last year in August after widespread violence. India had, last year, announced an aid of US $25 million. The United Nations had last month said that there were fresh cases of violence in northern Myanmar.