On July 20, 2023, India said that Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s visit to the Indian Nation is a major one as the country has important, multifaceted relations with the island nation.
“This is a very important visit. It is a neighbouring country with whom we have a very important relationship. We have multifaceted relations,” said Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Official Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi during the MEA weekly briefing on July 20, 2023.
On July 20, 2023, the Sri Lankan President will visit India. During his India visit, Wickremesinghe will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Indian counterpart Droupadi Murmu.
The Sri Lankan President will hold discussions with PM Modi and other Indian dignitaries on various issues of mutual interest.
This comes as Wickremesinghe’s first visit to India since taking charge as the Sri Lankan president.
On July 20, 2023, the MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said he will not reveal the conversations that would take place during the visit. He, however, added that India has discussed with Sri Lanka how closer economic cooperation with India can benefit the island nation.
“We have discussed with Sri Lanka issues of how closer economic cooperation, how the growth of our economy, can benefit them,” Bagchi said.
He said the two countries can hold discussions on common security issues, common areas of development cooperation, and new projects in investments.
Bagchi said India has been helping Sri Lanka in the face of its economic crisis.
“As you know, we have already been helping them or have helped them with their economic problems that happened earlier this year, and I think this will be a good base to take forward our conversation. This is the first visit of President Ranil Wickremesinghe as president. He has, of course, been here many times, and we look forward to the visit to impart new momentum to the relationship,” he said.
The Sri Lankan President’s visit to India will reinforce the longstanding friendship between the two countries and explore avenues for enhanced connectivity and mutually beneficial cooperation across sectors. Sri Lanka is an important partner in India’s Neighbourhood First Policy and Vision SAGAR (Security and Growth of All in the Region), as per an MEA official release. Wickremesinghe will also meet External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar during his India visit.
Meanwhile, India last week reaffirmed its commitment to the people of Sri Lanka to enable them to use the USD 1 billion Indian credit facility for the procurement of medicine, food and other essentials for one more year.
The External Affairs Minister of India (EAM) S Jaishankar recently underscored the importance of India’s “Neighbourhood First” Policy and highlighted the significant financial support of USD 4 billion provided by India to Sri Lanka last year.
The EAM said that India was the first nation to extend assistance to Sri Lanka for debt restructuring and played a crucial role in securing financing assurances from the IMF.
The island nation of Sri Lanka during the Rajapaksa regime took heavy loans from the Peoples Republic of China for the Hambantota Port. This port was a part of the strategic String of Pearls Theory developed by China which is nothing but an encirclement strategy and the aim is to isolate India in the Indian Ocean Region and the subcontinent in general.
The excessive and lavish spending and the funding of the Sri Lankan electoral campaigns soon began to exhaust the Sri Lankan Economy, and its constant association with China eventually led the nation to become bankrupt.
The masses came out and protested violently against the government. Schools ran out of paper, petrol and fuel stations were surrounded by armed guards and the foreign exchange was reduced to ashes. Mahinda Rajapaksa fled the country. It began to ask more and more monetary support from the International Monetary Fund, which only added fuel to the fire of high debt and subsequent crisis.
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