‘We will not allow Sri Lankan territory to be used against India,’ says President Dissanayake
New Delhi has in the past raised security concerns relating to the docking of Chinese ships at Sri Lankan ports.
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Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Monday said he had assured Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he would not allow his country’s territory to be used against Indian security interests.
“I assured the Indian leader that Sri Lanka will not permit its territory to be used in any manner inimical to the security of India as well as towards regional stability,” Dissanayake said at a press briefing alongside Modi in New Delhi.
New Delhi has in the past raised security concerns over the docking of Chinese military ships at Sri Lankan ports. Sri Lanka is of strategic importance to New Delhi amid its geopolitical competition with Beijing in the Indian Ocean region.
Dissanayake, who is on his first visit to India after becoming the president of the island nation in September, said that Modi had assured him of New Delhi’s “full commitment for the sustained economic growth of Sri Lanka in keeping with the special place Sri Lanka occupies in India’s foreign policy framework”.
Sri Lanka faced an economic and political crisis in 2022 with the country declaring bankruptcy in July that year.
The dispute pertaining to Indian fisherfolk allegedly trespassing into Sri Lankan maritime waters could be addressed in a “humanitarian manner”, Dissanayake and Modi said in a joint statement.
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