New Delhi: Sharply escalating the rhetoric with an eye towards India, Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu said that the archipelago in the Indian Ocean was “not in backyard of any particular country” and was actively working to reduce dependence on procuring essential commodities from a single nation.
The strong words by the Maldivian President came while addressing reporters on his return to the Maldives from a five-day state visit to China on Saturday, January 14.
Meanwhile, in the first major election into Muizzu’s presidency, the ruling coalition lost the capital city Malé’s mayoral elections to the opposition, Maldivian Democratic Party. This election was necessitated by Muizzu’s resignation as Malé mayor following his victory in last November’s presidential election.
Last weekend, the Maldivian government had “suspended” three deputy ministers for making disparaging remarks against the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi after his visit to the Lakshadweep islands. Following the tweets, several Indian celebrities started to post together that they will boycott the Maldives as a tourist destination.
The Indian government had summoned the Maldivian ambassador to South Block last Monday. On the same, the Indian envoy went to the Maldivian foreign ministry for what was later described as a “pre-arranged” meeting. It had seemed that the two sides were trying to bring down the temperature as neither side provided any further details.
But, Muizzu on return to Maldives seemed to have jumped into the fray.
‘Licence to bully’
“We are not in the backyard of any particular country. We are an independent and sovereign country,” he said in answer to a question at a media conference at the Velana International Airport. He asserted that China respected Maldives’ territorial integrity.
The Maldivian President stated that the Indian Ocean is not the exclusive domain of any specific nation and noted that the Maldives holds a significant stake in the vast expanse of this ocean.
“Even though our islands are small, we are a huge country with a very large exclusive economic zone of nine lakh square kilometres. Maldives is one country that holds the largest proportion of this ocean. This ocean is not the property of a specific country,” he said.
Muizzu even took a swipe at the earlier President Mohamed Solih for having a close relation with India, but without mentioning New Delhi directly. He said, as per the Maldivian media, that Solih had to take permission from a foreign government “to get up from one chair and sit on another chair”.
Muizzu had won the presidential elections and stopped Solih’s re-election bid by campaigning on a platform with the slogan of ‘India Out’. On the second day of his presidency, Muizzu had called on India to remove Indian security personnel stationed in Maldives.
“We might be a small country, but that does not give you the licence to bully us,” he said on Saturday.
Trade
Till now, all democratically-elected Maldivian Presidents had chosen India as their first foreign trip. Muizzu chose to go to Turkey and then UAE last year, following which he travelled to China for his first state visit.
The Maldivian President pledged to diminish Maldives’ reliance on India across multiple sectors.
Maldives primarily relies on India as its main supplier of essential commodities, with New Delhi providing a special annual quota for items such as eggs, potatoes, sugar, dal, rice, wheat flour, stone aggregates, and river sand, exempt from restrictions.
According to media reports, Muizzu said that the government “will hopefully stop bringing low-quality medicine and opt to bring medicine directly from the original manufacturer”.
“We will hopefully change it to import medicine from Europe and the US,” he said.
Muizzu also asserted that he will diversify sources for essential commodities for rice-sugar and flour.
He announced that his government successfully struck a deal with Turkey and has initiated the order for the inaugural shipment.
“We haven’t just arranged for the supply. In a first, this Ramadan, the government will donate a 10-kg rice bag and a 10-kg flour bag to each and every household,” he said.