New Delhi: Hours after external affairs minister S. Jaishankar rushed to Colombo to meet Sri Lanka’s new president, India announced on Tuesday that Gotabaya Rajapaksa will be visiting New Delhi next week.
Jaishankar’s sudden arrival in Colombo this afternoon was first reported by Sri Lankan media. The minister then tweeted about his “warm meeting” with Rajapaksa.
This makes the Indian foreign minister the first top foreign official to meet with Gotabaya Rajapaksa after his election victory on Sunday.
Jaishankar indicated that he carried a personal message from prime minister Narendra Modi for Rajapaksa.
Also read: Sri Lanka’s New President Gotabaya: The View From New Delhi
More significantly, Jaishankar announced that Rajapaksa will be travelling to New Delhi on his first foreign visit as president on November 29.
A warm meeting with Sri Lanka President @GotabayaR. Conveyed PM @narendramodi’s message of a partnership for shared peace, progress, prosperity & security. Confident that under his leadership, #IndiaSriLanka relations would reach greater heights. pic.twitter.com/pDxZf0ZM3A
— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) November 19, 2019
This means that Rajapaksa will be travelling to Sri Lanka’s largest neighbouring country within two weeks of his election victory.
It is traditional for Sri Lankan heads of state to choose New Delhi as their first destination. Rajapaksa’s immediate predecessor, Maithiripala Sirisena had honoured this diplomatic practice, but he had spent over a month in office before making his first foreign trip in February 2015.
In his first speech as president after being sworn-in on Monday, president Rajapaksa stated that he would follow a “equidistant” foreign policy, which would allow Sri Lanka to remain neutral in great power games.
“We intend to be friendly with each and every country. We do not wish to be caught in geopolitical power plays between global powers,” he stated.
As a policy, we will maintain an equi-distant and yet, cordial relations with all countries and remain neutral in the power struggles amongst nations. I also appeal to all global leaders, to respect the sovereignty and unitary status of Sri Lanka pic.twitter.com/GoSFrS6Yk0
— Gotabaya Rajapaksa (@GotabayaR) November 18, 2019
India does not usually like its neighbours to remain “neutral”, as that means that they are likely to put New Delhi and Beijing on the same weighing scale.
An Indian foreign ministry readout of the phone call between Modi and Rajapaksa on Sunday stated that the new Sri Lankan leader was ready to “to work with India very closely to ensure development and security”.
India is understood to be required to lay the red carpet for Rajapaksa in order to stop Colombo’s further drift into China’s orbit. During the last few years of the new president’s elder brother Mahinda Rajapaksa’s term as president (when Gotabaya was defence secretary), India had been concerned at the large scale infusion of Chinese money through various infrastructure projects.
With Rajapaksa having won on a national security platform, India is hoping that the fight against Islamist terrorism could provide the common challenge to bring the new administration and New Delhi on the same page.