New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be inaugurating a coastal surveillance radar system and a Comprehensive Training Centre (CTC) for Maldives national forces as part of a joint defence cooperation pact during his first state visit to the island nation on 8 June.
The projects will be jointly inaugurated by PM Modi and Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale told reporters Thursday.
Joint defence pact signed in 2016
India and Maldives had signed an Action Plan for defence cooperation in 2016 as part of which both sides had drawn up an exhaustive list of defence projects and purchase of defence equipment. However, the progress on the Action Plan slowed down when Maldives was under President Abdulla Yameen’s rule.
“The coastal surveillance radar system and the CTC are part of the Action Plan for defence cooperation,” Gokhale said, adding that recently India refurbished and refitted one of Maldives’ coast guard ship — Huravee — and handed it over to it.
“We will continue to maintain that (Huravee) for them. Discussions for other big projects as part of the (Action) plan are also going on,” he added.
Besides inaugurating defence projects, Modi will address the legislative body of Maldives — People’s Majlis.
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Modi to visit Sri Lanka as well
As part of India’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy, Modi will visit Sri Lanka on 9 June, where he will be meeting President Maithripala Sirisena and opposition leader Mahinda Rajapaksa.
India will even build a container terminal for the main Colombo Port as part of a joint venture with Japan and Sri Lanka.
“We have reached an initial agreement for a trilateral arrangement under which the Sri Lanka Port Authority will hold the majority share and the remaining shares will be held between entities of Japan and India. The shareholding pattern still has to be worked out, but we will now go into discussion about the scope of the port, the manner of the financing, the timeline and so on,” Gokhale said.
He added this is just the beginning of India’s endeavour to build and develop infrastructure in the region with the help of other countries.
Responding to a question on growing Chinese influence in Sri Lanka, Gokhale said India is not building the container terminal there keeping Beijing in mind.
“I do not see our cooperation with any country in our region (neighbourhood) as necessarily having some ulterior motive or being directed against another country or being part of some grand strategy. I think our objective is infrastructure development in our region that benefits our economy and the economy of that country,” he said.
Modi’s trip to Sri Lanka and Maldives will be his first foreign trip since his re-election. While Modi had last visited Sri Lanka in May 2017, the last visit by an Indian prime minister to Maldives was by Manmohan Singh in 2011.
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