India wants new defence ties with Lanka

Daily Mirror
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Indian Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar is to visit Colombo soon to get to know the issues to be taken up at the first annual defence dialogue between the two countries, The Hindu Newspaper reported quoting an Indian Defence Ministry source.

This was after talks in New Delhi between a Sri Lankan delegation led by Minister Basil Rajapaksa and a high powered Indian delegation comprising National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and Defence Secretary Pradeep Kumar.

The Sri Lankan delegation included Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Presidential Secretary Lalith Weeratunga.

The institutional mechanism of an annual defence dialogue was decided by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa during a meeting in June.

“It is time to look at greater comprehensive cooperation. In this context, we broadly discussed the areas which would be important to focus on in the annual defence dialogue. An earlier visit by the Indian Defence Secretary will help to understand the issues. In the aftermath of the conflict, there is a need for a different defence relationship,” the source said after the high-level India-Sri Lanka talks on Thursday.

He denied that Sri Lanka had approached India for assistance in building the second phase of the Hambantota port. China had undertaken the expansion and modernisation work in the first phase and was understood to have tied up with Sri Lanka for the second phase as well.

India was cautious in its defence ties with Sri Lanka during the conflict and had restricted military assistance to non-lethal aspects such as enhancing the Armed forces' maritime and aerial domain awareness. When Sri Lanka sought arms from other countries including Pakistan, New Delhi enabled Colombo to seal a $300 million armaments deal with its old ally Moscow.

The source said defence was one of the several issues at the table, most of which were a follow-up of decisions taken during Mr. Rajapaksa's recent visit. Both sides also discussed the problems facing fishermen, with India pointing out that killings were unacceptable and that a way had to be found to eliminate this altogether. It was agreed to open channels of communication between fishermen from both countries to understand issues that have sparked violence on the high seas.

Having embarked on building railway infrastructure in Sri Lanka, India has signed most of the contracts and an Export and Import Bank team will shortly complete the arrangements for the $800 million credit for the purpose.

India has completed the hydrological survey of the Kankesanthurai port and will be sending a team to finalise the detailed project report. It is also finalising the tender documents for the modernisation of the Palaly airport.

Sri Lanka said it appreciated the ground covered by India in three months to construct 50,000 houses for the internally displaced people with the pilot project for 1,000 houses set to take off soon.

© Daily Mirror