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New Delhi's cold shoulder to Turkey: PM Modi cancels two-day state visit to Ankara after Erdoğan's Kashmir remarks

India has also sharply criticised Turkey's military operations in Syria earlier this week.

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Highlighting a new low in India-Turkey relations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to cancel his two-day state visit to Turkey's capital, Ankara, that was to take place at the end of October. This decision by New Delhi to cold shoulder the country assumes further importance in the world stage, especially in the backdrop of the fact that Turkey, whose relations have never been very warm with India, is gradually inching further away with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan openly raising the Kashmir issue at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and his country backing Pakistan at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) meet earlier in Paris.

The Ministry of External Affairs, however, was non-committal over this development. "The visit was never finalised, so there is no question of cancellation," an MEA source said.

The two-day state visit by Modi to Ankara, which was in the talks, would have been the Prime Minister's first stand-alone visit to Turkey after he had last visited the country during the G-20 summit in Antalya in 2015.

According to sources, PM Modi was slated to visit the country following his visit to Saudi Arabia, where he is going to attend a mega-investment summit on October 27-28. Trade and defence cooperation were among the issues that were to be on the table during PM Modi's Ankara visit, which had been agreed to 'in-principle.'

India-Turkey bilateral relations have long been marked by sporadic tensions due to the West Asian country's support for Pakistan, historically differing on issues such as the 1915 Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire and several policies in South Asia. To keep the country on a check, India has also cemented its ties with three of Turkey's neighbours - Cyprus, Armenia, and Greece.

India has also sharply criticised Turkey's military operations in Syria earlier this week.

 

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