India and Sri Lanka Revive Maritime Dialog
India and Sri Lanka have renewed maritime dialogs after a 6-year gap.
The Hindu reports about India and Sri Lanka restarting trilateral maritime dialogs between themselves and Maldives. Talks about maritime activity involving these three nations were restored when India’s National Security Advisor, Ajit Doval, visited Colombo last month in November.
Before that, a similar meeting was last held back in 2014 in New Delhi.
This latest development precedes Mahinda Rajapaksa being appointed as Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister earlier this year – by his brother, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the President of the island nation.
Sri Lanka has pursued a policy of ‘India-First’ since. That is the reason, for his first official trip abroad as PM, Mahinda Rajapaksa chose to travel to New Delhi in February.
A virtual summit was held between the two nations later in September. During this interaction, Mahinda conveyed his country’s gratitude towards India for its help in dealing with an oil tanker fire on the island’s east coast.
The possibility of India being granted control of eastern container terminal operations at Colombo harbour, in a joint venture with Japan, has also been explored.
