Modi made 56 foreign visits as PM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made 56 foreign visits since assuming charge in May 2014, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

According to a list provided by Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh in reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, after first visiting Bhutan in June 2014, Modi visited the US four times, and Nepal, Japan, Russia, Afghanistan and China two times each.

In September 2014, he combined his bilateral visit to Washington with a visit to New York for the UN General Assembly session.

In September 2015, he visited New York for the UN General Assembly session during the course of which he again met then US President Barack Obama and then proceeded to San Jose, California, where he interacted with top Fortune 500 CEOs.

The Prime Minister made his third visit to the US in the spring of 2016 for the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington during which he highlighted India's role and commitment to the global partnership in nuclear security.

He again visited the US at the invitation of Obama in June 2016 during the course of which he addressed the US Congress.

Modi paid an official bilateral visit to Nepal in August 2014, the first by an Indian Prime Minister in 17 years, and again visited the Himalayan nation in November 2014 to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) Summit.

He visited Japan in the autumn of 2014 and then in November 2016, both times to attend the annual bilateral summit.

The Prime Minister visited Russia in July 2015 to attend the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Summit in Ufa and then again in December 2015 to attend the annual bilateral summit.

He visited Afghanistan in December 2015 during which he jointly dedicated with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani the country's new parliament building built with Indian aid, and again in June 2016 to jointly dedicate the Afghan-India Friendship Dam in Herat province.

He went to China on a bilateral visit in May 2015 and then again in September 2016 to attend the G20 Summit in Hangzhou.

In May 2015, he became the first ever Indian Prime Minister to visit Mongolia marking the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between India and Mongolia.

His visits to the Indian Ocean archipelago nation of Seychelles in March 2015 and to the United Arab Emirates in August 2015 were the first by an Indian Prime Minister in 34 years.

Among other major nations, Modi made bilateral visits to Canada in April 2015 and to Britain in November 2015.

In November 2014, he visited Australia to attend the G20 Summit in Brisbane and then stayed back for a bilateral visit.

--IANS

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