Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake will visit India at the invitation of the Indian government in mid-December, Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath said on Monday.

He will call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar who became the first foreign dignitary to call on Dissanayake when he was elected President in September had extended the invitation. 

Jaishankar visited Sri Lanka in October since the National People’s Power (NPP) government led by Dissanayake came to power on September 23.

Herath who retained his foreign ministry portfolio in the first Cabinet of Dissanayake after his landslide victory in the parliamentary election held last week said the new government was intent on improving Sri Lanka’s relations with the world in their bid to effect a renaissance in the island’s governance.

In April 2022, the island nation declared its first-ever sovereign default since gaining Independence from Britain in 1948. The unprecedented financial crisis led the then president Gotabaya Rajapaksa to quit office in 2022 amid civil unrest.

India had then pitched in with about USD 4 billion in assistance to enable the island nation to recover from a deep economic crisis after it announced the default on over USD 51 billion in foreign loans. Sri Lanka is India’s key maritime neighbour in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and occupies a special place in its initiatives such as ‘SAGAR’ (Security and Growth for All in the Region) and the ‘Neighbourhood First Policy.

‘While in Opposition, Dissanayake had expressed his reservations about some of the Indian projects, especially the sustainable energy projects run by the Adani Group. In the run-up to the election, Dissanayake had pledged to annul those projects if voted to power, claiming that the projects were inimical to Sri Lankan interests.

Source: PTI
--Agencies