Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to skip the upcoming ASEAN Summit in Malaysia, starting from Sunday due to scheduling issues, sources said, adding that External Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar will represent India at the summit.
The ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) summit will be held in Kuala Lumpur from October 26 to 28.
There is no official confirmation yet on India’s level of participation at the deliberations related to the summit.
Sources said that India is reported to have conveyed to Malaysia that EAM Jaishankar will represent India at the ASEAN meetings.
There is a possibility of PM Modi’s participation through virtual mode at the ASEAN-India summit.
Since 2014, Prime Minister Modi has skipped only one East Asia Summit (EAS) — the 17th edition held in November 2022 in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh.
With barely a few days left for the 20th EAS in Kuala Lumpur (October 26), the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) was non-committal on Tuesday on whether the PM would attend the AEAN summit as well as the EAS.
Malaysian government representatives and its media, however, have said that PM Modi would be one of the world leaders attending the EAS, along with US President Donald Trump, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and several others.
The Prime Minister has led the Indian delegations at the ASEAN-India summit and the East Asia Summit in the last few years.
The 10-member countries of ASEAN are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia.
The two-way relations between India and ASEAN have been on a significant upswing in the last few years with focus being on boosting cooperation in the areas of trade and investment as well as security and defence.
According to the initial plan, a visit by PM Modi to Cambodia along with Malaysia was being contemplated.
However, as PM Modi is not travelling to Malaysia, the planned trip to Cambodia stands postponed, sources said.
Malaysia has invited US President Donald Trump as well as leaders of several countries which are the dialogue partners of the ASEAN.
Trump is set to travel to Kuala Lumpur on October 26 on a two-day visit.
The ASEAN-India dialogue relations started with the establishment of a sectoral partnership in 1992. This graduated to full dialogue partnership in December 1995 and summit-level partnership in 2002.
The ties were elevated to a strategic partnership in 2012.
The PM attended the ninth EAS, his first as India’s Prime Minister, in Myanmar in November 2014. He attended the subsequent EAS in November 2015 in Malaysia, the 11th EAS in Laos in September 2016, the 12th EAS in the Philippines in November 2017, the 13th in Singapore in November 2018 and the 14th in Thailand in November 2019.
The 16th and 17th EAS were held online with Vietnam and Brunei as the host countries in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
PM Modi attended the next two summits that took place in September 2023 and October 2024, in Indonesia and Laos, respectively.
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