New Indo-Myanmar road opened

KALEWA (Myanmar), February 13 (PTI): Giving a new impetus to Indo-Myanmar relations, external affairs minister Jaswant Singh today opened a 165-km road built with Indian assistance linking the two countries to pave the way for enhanced tourism, trade and economic ties. Using a special computer-aided design, Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has constructed the Tamu-Kalamyn-Kalewa road, costing Rs 100 crore, in a record time of three months. Singh, who is on a three-day official visit, the first high-level from India to Myanmar since the trip by Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister in 1987, arrived from Imphal in a helicopter and touched down in the Myanmar border town of Tamu before going to Kalewa, 700 km northwest of Yangon. Top Myanmarese officials including Lt Gen Tin Oo, secretary two of the ruling junta, attended the Highway inauguration function. The external affairs minister would spend the night in Mandalay, Myaninar's second largest city, before reaching Yangon tomorrow where he is scheduled to attend a dinner hosted by his counterpart Win Aung. He is scheduled to call on Shwe, chairman of the ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), the highest policy makin body of the Myanmar military regime on Thursday. Sharing a long and porous border stretching over 1600 kms, India and Myanmar face the serious problems of cross-border insurgency, drug trafficking and smuggling of illegal arms. Though institutional mechanisms have been set up to deal with these issues, they continue to be a source of major concern for the two neighhours. Myanmar is attaching considerable significance to Singh's visit. On its part, India is keen on broad basing its relations with Myanmar whose entry into ASEAN and sub-regional grouping BIMST-EC in 1997 have opened new avenues for further cooperation in trade and economy at bilateral and multilateral levels.