NSA Ajit Doval to visit Myanmar soon to discuss further ‘joint action’

New Delhi: National security advisor Ajit Doval will visit Myanmar soon to discuss further “joint action” against insurgents, it was disclosed on Wednesday, a day after the Indian Army carried out a surgical strike in that country.

Doval, who is said to have been closely involved in planning Tuesday’s operation along the India-Myanmar border, will undertake the visit with a view to discuss with the authorities there “further joint action” against Northeast insurgents, high-level government sources said.

The government and armies of the two countries are in “close and continued” contact on the issue, they said. Indian ambassador to Myanmar Gautam Mukhopadhaya on Wednesday reviewed the post-operation situation with senior officials of the Myanmar government in the capital Nay Pyi Tow.

On Tuesday’s strike by the Indian army, the sources said India invoked May 2014 Border Agreement with Myanmar on border cooperation. India and Myanmar had signed the MoU on border operation on 8 May last year, providing for a framework for security cooperation and exchange of information between security agencies of the two countries.

A key provision of the pact was conduct of coordinated patrols on their respective sides of the international border and the maritime boundary by the Armed Forces of the two countries. In a pre-dawn cross-border operation, elite commandos of the army in coordination with the air force went a few kilometres inside Myanmarese territory to destroy two camps of insurgents hiding there after their attacks in Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh last week by suspected NSCN(K) and KYKL outfits.