New Delhi: Even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi batted for strengthening regional cooperation as a consequence of international instability due to the Ukraine war, India also defended the participation of a representative of Myanmar junta at the virtual BIMSTEC summit.

The leaders of the seven member states of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) held their fifth summit in a virtual mode, after a gap of four years.

Besides India, BIMSTEC, set up in 1997, comprises Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Nepal and Bhutan.

The Summit on Wednesday, March 30 adopted the ‘BIMSTEC Charter’ which will give the grouping an international identity and lays out the basic institutional architecture through which it will carry out its work.

While all the nations were represented by at least their head of the government, Myanmar’s foreign minister Wunna Maung Lwin took part in the summit.

The Wire had reported on Tuesday, March 29 that the US had issued a démarche to India that Myanmar should be barred from BIMSTEC. The diplomatic protest note had also asked the grouping to follow the example of ASEAN, which had prevented the participation of the junta at the October 2021 summit.

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At a media briefing after the summit, a senior Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official said that BIMSTEC members had to engage with Myanmar. “The members on this platform are countries who are either geographically littoral to or dependent upon the Bay of Bengal. For the success of cooperation activities on this platform, we require all countries to be present and to participate in that cooperation activities. Myanmar is an important constituent member of the BIMSTEC and it has a very important geography,” MEA additional secretary Rudrendra Tandon told reporters.

At the summit, Prime Minister Modi said that the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war demonstrated the importance of regional cooperation to maintain the global order.

“Developments in Europe in the past few weeks have raised a question mark on the stability of the international order. In this context, it has become important to further activate BIMSTEC regional cooperation. It has also become imperative to give more priority to our regional security,” he said.

He announced that India will provide $1 million to augment the operational budget of the BIMSTEC secretariat, based in Dhaka.

Prime Minister Modi said that in order to increase mutual trade among BIMSTEC nations, it is important to move forward on the BIMSTEC FTA proposal.

With our region facing challenges of health and economic security, the need of the hour is unity and cooperation, he said.

“Today is the time to make the Bay of Bengal a bridge of connectivity, prosperity and security,” he said.

Following the adoption of the charter, the organisation also drew up a list of cooperation sectors.

“Henceforth, BIMSTEC cooperation activities will take place in seven pillars. Each pillar will be led by one of the member states, who will be primarily responsible for furthering cooperation. In that reorganisation, it was decided that India will lead the security pillar,” said Tandon.

India will aim to “establish the highest quality norms for combating terrorism and transnational crime and other non-traditional crimes” under the security pillar.

(With PTI inputs)