New Delhi: Venezuela's foreign minister Delcy Rodriguez met her counterpart Sushma Swaraj here on Thursday to invite India for the upcoming 17th Non-Aligned Movement summit in the South American country.
After a couple of postponements, the summit will be finally held in Venezuela's Margarita Island on September 17-18.
Venezuela's envoy to India Augusto Montiel had earlier invited Narendra Modi for the NAM summit but the PM is likely to give it a miss, as reported by TOI on Wednesday. MEA said that Swaraj has confirmed India's participation and told Rodriguez that Venezuela would soon be informed about the details.
It would be interesting to see who is sent to represent India as no Indian prime minister, barring the caretaker Charan Singh in 1979, has never chosen to skip the NAM summit.
Swaraj, however, underlined the significance India attaches to NAM as one of its founding fathers. MEA spokesman Vikas Swarup said the two leaders had a substantive meeting. "They discussed the whole gamut of bilateral issues and views were exchanged on various multilateral issues, including UNSC Reform, UN peacekeeping and terrorism. The ministers agreed to move ahead for an early finalisation of various agreements in different areas, including extradition treaty, Double Tax Avoidance Agreement (DTAA), Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) on criminal matters and Air Services Agreement," said Swarup.
It was agreed that there is huge potential on both sides on the trade front and the basket needed to be diversified. The ministers also agreed that the next Joint Commission Meeting should be held soon in Venezuela.
"India raised the issue to pending payments of both public and private sector companies with the Venezuelan side. They assured that they will look into the matter for an early solution," the MEA statement said.
After a couple of postponements, the summit will be finally held in Venezuela's Margarita Island on September 17-18.
Venezuela's envoy to India Augusto Montiel had earlier invited Narendra Modi for the NAM summit but the PM is likely to give it a miss, as reported by TOI on Wednesday. MEA said that Swaraj has confirmed India's participation and told Rodriguez that Venezuela would soon be informed about the details.
It would be interesting to see who is sent to represent India as no Indian prime minister, barring the caretaker Charan Singh in 1979, has never chosen to skip the NAM summit.
Swaraj, however, underlined the significance India attaches to NAM as one of its founding fathers. MEA spokesman Vikas Swarup said the two leaders had a substantive meeting. "They discussed the whole gamut of bilateral issues and views were exchanged on various multilateral issues, including UNSC Reform, UN peacekeeping and terrorism. The ministers agreed to move ahead for an early finalisation of various agreements in different areas, including extradition treaty, Double Tax Avoidance Agreement (DTAA), Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) on criminal matters and Air Services Agreement," said Swarup.
It was agreed that there is huge potential on both sides on the trade front and the basket needed to be diversified. The ministers also agreed that the next Joint Commission Meeting should be held soon in Venezuela.
"India raised the issue to pending payments of both public and private sector companies with the Venezuelan side. They assured that they will look into the matter for an early solution," the MEA statement said.