Myanmar President Min Aung Hlaing meets NSA Ajit Doval on first India visit since taking office

The visit comes less than two months after Min Aung Hlaing became President following Myanmar's parliamentary elections held in December and January.

Updated on: May 31, 2026, 21:50:15 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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National Security Adviser Ajit Doval met Myanmar President Min Aung Hlaing in New Delhi on Sunday. This is Myanmar leader's first visit to India since assuming office in April.

Myanmar President Min Aung Hlaing meets NSA Ajit Doval.

The visit comes less than two months after Min Aung Hlaing became President following Myanmar's parliamentary elections held in December and January. The polls were conducted after years of political turmoil triggered by the military coup of February 2021, which ousted the democratically elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi.

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Myanmar remains one of India's key strategic neighbours, sharing a 1,640-km border with several northeastern states, including Nagaland and Manipur. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to hold wide-ranging talks with Min Aung Hlaing on Monday.

According to ministry of external affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, discussions during the visit are expected to focus on border security, connectivity and other issues of mutual interest.

Earlier, external affairs minister S Jaishankar met the Myanmar President to discuss key facets of the bilateral partnership, including connectivity and trade

The visit assumes significance amid New Delhi's efforts to strengthen engagement with Myanmar under its Neighbourhood First policy and enhance cooperation in areas related to security, infrastructure and regional stability.

Earlier, on the sidelines of the first International Security Forum and the 14th Meeting of High Representatives for Security Matters in Moscow earlier this week, Doval had met Myanmar's National Security Adviser Tin Aung San. The two sides reviewed ongoing cooperation in security, defence and connectivity, while also exchanging views on regional developments.

These meetings underscore India's continued outreach to its eastern neighbour under the Neighbourhood First policy, with a focus on border management, connectivity projects and regional stability.

Myanmar's NSA is also expected to visit India in July to participate in the fifth meeting of National Security Advisers of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), providing another opportunity for both sides to deepen strategic cooperation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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