ASEAN summit: PM Modi set to hold series of bilateral talks on Tuesday

As the South China Sea dispute dominated deliberations on the first day of the ASEAN summit, PM Modi on Monday called for maintaining peace in the region.

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Manila: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Tuesday hold a series of bilateral meetings with heads of states.

He will attend Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership meet comprising 10-member ASEAN bloc and six other countries.

PM Modi is also expected to meet his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Japanese PM Shinzo Abe among others. 

Meanwhile, on Monday he said that India never harmed anyone and always believed in giving.

Addressing a gathering of Indian community in Manila, PM Modi said India had never taken anything from anyone in its history and rather sacrificed a lot, seen as a veiled message to China which has been ramping up its assertiveness in the resource-rich South China Sea.

"If you go to our history, you will see we have never taken anything from anyone. We sacrificed 1.5 lakh soldiers in the first and second World Wars but never believed in snatching," he said on a day the leaders of 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations began a two-day long summit talks which primarily focused China's expansionist military posturing in the South China Sea.

(With PTI inputs)