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Sushma shifts dates for fishing talks
View(s):India has rescheduled Fisheries Minister Mahinda Amaraweera’s visit this month to New Delhi for talks on the thorny issue of Indian fishermen poaching in Sri Lanka’s waters, but Sri Lanka is yet to be informed of the change of date.
Mr. Amarawera was due to visit New Delhi this month following an official invitation from India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj when she was in Sri Lanka in February for the India-Lanka Joint Commission meeting. But Ms. Swaraj this week told India’s Rajya Sabha that the high level meeting between the fisheries ministers of the two countries would be held in May.
A Fisheries Ministry official in Colombo said India’s decision to postpone the talks had not been officially conveyed to Sri Lanka yet.
Minister Amaraweera told the Sunday Times earlier that in view of the Tamil Nadu State Assembly elections in May, he would only take up the use of illegal fishing methods by Indian fishermen in Sri Lanka’s waters and defer the call for a total ban on Indian fishermen to a later date.