President Kovind to visit Turkmenistan, Netherlands next month

President Ram Nath Kovind will be on an official visit to Turkmenistan from April 1 to 4 and this visit will be just after the inauguration of the new President of Turkmenistan, said MEA's joint secretary, in charge of the BIMSTEC and south Asian region, Rudrendra Tandon on Wednesday.

"President Ram Nath Kovind will visit Turkmenistan from 1st to 4th April. This will be the first-ever visit of the President of India to Turkmenistan. The visit also comes just after the inauguration of the new President of Turkmenistan," Assistant Secretary Tandon said in a special briefing of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

Additional Secretary also informed that said that the President will also visit the Netherlands from April 4 to 7 and the President will also host the cultural programme there.

"President Kovind to visit the Netherlands from 4-7 April. During the visit, he will hold discussions with His Royal Majesties & PM Mark Rutte. He will also be hosting a cultural performance there, it will be graced by King Willem -Alexander and Queen Maxima," he said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, earlier in the day virtually addressed the 5th BIMSTEC Virtual Summit hosted by Sri Lanka. Prior to the Summit, there were preparatory meetings at the Foreign Ministers level and senior official level. This took place on Monday and Tuesday, Secretary Saurabh Kumar and EAM S Jaishankar attended these meetings in Colombo.

The theme of this Summit was "Towards a Resilient Region, Prosperous Economies, Healthy People".

"This was chosen by the Chair and it sort to capture the main pre-occupations that currently prevail in the political leadership of the region centred around prosperity, resilience and public health. This provided the context to several of the interventions," said Tandon.

The adoption of the charter has given the BIMSTEC an "international personality" and it reflected a significant evolution of this grouping as this year marks the 25th year of its establishment of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).

( With inputs from ANI )