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European Union (EU) member-states have withdrawn their negative travel advisory for Assam, except for the three districts under the Armed Forces (Special Power) Act or AFSPA, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Saturday. EU Ambassador to India Herve Delphin informed the Assam chief secretary that the restriction has been lifted from Friday, he said. "After reviewing the situation in Assam, they have withdrawn the negative travel advisory from yesterday. All the 27 member-states of the EU have lifted the restrictions for its citizens travelling to our state, barring the three districts of Charaideo, Tinsukia and Sivasagar which are under AFSPA," Sarma said on Facebook Live. He said that the USA and Canada are yet to lift the travel restrictions for Assam, and the state government was pursuing the matter with them. Australia and Japan had earlier withdrawn similar advisories for their citizens last year, the CM said in a post on X. "This development, following the recent visi
European Union nations agreed on Friday to open membership talks with Ukraine next week, officially launching the process for the war-torn country to eventually join the world's biggest trading bloc. At a meeting in Brussels, ambassadors from the 27 EU nations decided to officially open negotiations with Ukraine as well as with Moldova, which Russia has also tried to drag back into its orbit, on Monday in Luxembourg. Ukraine sees EU membership as an important "security guarantee" for a stable future once war with Russia ends. Its best guarantee would be NATO membership, but the Trump administration insists that cannot happen. Others oppose it joining while fighting continues. Russia is strongly against it, and has cited moves toward NATO membership as a reason for launching its full-scale invasion in 2022, though it has not objected to EU membership for Kyiv. Countries hoping to join the EU must complete negotiations in 35 policy areas, or chapters, ranging from agriculture to trad