Editorial

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi is due in Sri Lanka next week on a rare state visit abroad—unless unsettled circumstances in war-torn West Asia overtake events.

Unlike in other constitutional presidencies, the Iranian President is not the numero uno of his country. That honour goes to its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who never leaves the country. Thus, the significance of the President’s visit.

The G-7 countries (the United States and its allies) began making diplomatic noises about the timing of the visit when news reached the Colombo media about the visit earlier this week. With Iran being in the eye of a global storm since its direct attacks on Israel, Sri Lanka might be asking itself what it deserves to attract all the attention for this largely bilateral visit planned three months ago. Its neutrality and efforts to abide by the so-called ‘rules-based world order’ have been under constant, unending pressure from all sides starting with visits of ‘research vessels’ of big powers calling in Sri Lankan ports. For the West, it’s ‘either you are with us or against us’.

Modern-day Iran is committed to the destruction of the state of Israel and is a sworn enemy of the US. It is feeding armed groups in the West Asian region to wage proxy guerrilla wars towards their goals. Israel has also been engaged in targeted attacks not only on Iranian strategic and diplomatic targets but also assassinating individuals identified as detrimental to their existence, viz., Iranian nuclear scientists and senior military personnel. Western powers are quick to condemn the Iranian actions, but slow on the Israeli action, always covering the latter’s back.

Friday night’s Israeli attack on Iran also touches on the ominous nuclear dimension underlying the conflict as well as the broader West Asian security situation itself. Israel is the only country in the region possessing nuclear weapons. The attack will now give Iran further justification to proceed with its own nuclear weapons programme.

The tit-for-tat cycle of violence is never-ending and leading nowhere and against what the world wants for the region: a two-state solution of Israel as a fait accompli and a free Palestine so that the long-suffering people of both can live in peace. While proclaiming its support for the two-state solution, the US to date continues to veto Palestine’s bid for UN membership.

Israel and the West are not the only enemies of Iran. Being a theological state, it has few friends in the neighbourhood due to what others perceive as Iran’s hegemonic presence in the region exporting its own brand of Islamic values. The West exploits this division to the full. It is therefore, incredible that Israel is permitted to go on and on with the genocidal slaughter of men, women and children in Gaza and the West Bank of Occupied Palestine, even during the holy month of Ramadan, with the rest of the Arab world only making muffled sounds because Israel has made out they are doing them a favour by neutralising the pro-Iranian Hamas group.

Lanka and Persia are nations with ancient civilizations. Bilateral relations have been steady and mutually supportive. On the multilateral front both face a situation of Western selectivity and double standards—Sri Lanka on human rights, and Iran on its intensely monitored nuclear programme while Israel gets a free pass on both counts. Both countries are faced with foreign exchange issues, Iran in particular with crippling sanctions against its people to punish its Government. The two had to work out a novel tea-for-oil exchange whereby Sri Lanka is paying back for past oil imports worth USD 241 million with tea over a staggered period. Iran thus became a creditor when Sri Lanka declared itself bankrupt in 2022, but readily agreed to a moratorium despite its own difficulties.

Over and above that, Iran funded almost entirely the Uma Oya multi-purpose project (please see page 6 for details) the visiting President will declare open if all goes well.

What was a routine bilateral visit has now become a hot potato due to current events in West Asia and Sri Lanka’s foreign policy of a ‘friend of all and enemy of none’ is put to test in no uncertain terms.

India: Lanka should look south also

The world’s largest representative democracy, India concluded the first phase of its current Parliamentary election this week.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) riding high almost entirely on the personal charisma of its leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to sweep the polls when the final results are announced on June 4. However, the BJP juggernaut is probably going to meet its match in the southern states of India, including the state of Tamil Nadu which voted last Thursday.

The BJP’s nationalistic, right-wing, aggressively pro-Hindutva campaign has won widespread grassroots support in the north of the vast sub-continent but it does not seem to have the same currency in the south. The ‘one nation; one language; one culture’ policy of this ‘saffron party’ is viewed with suspicion in the South.

It was in clearly a desperate bid to throw some political mud at Tamil Nadu’s ruling party, the DMK, that the Prime Minister no less, threw foreign policy considerations to the wind by dragging the Kachchativu non-issue into his election rhetoric with his faithful choir singing from the same hymn sheet.

Wiser counsel seems to have prevailed on the BJP hierarchy after sections of the Indian (non-mainstream) media slammed all of them for shooting off the hip on a settled subject jeopardising otherwise good relations with neighbouring Sri Lanka. The party’s final campaign run in Tamil Nadu last week was minus references to Kachchativu.

It was somewhat heartening that the Tamil Nadu parties at least this time refrained from playing the ‘Sri Lanka Tamils plight’ card to win votes. They were probably unable to do so as there was no armed conflict in the island nation and they themselves remained exposed for encouraging their fishermen to steal the catch off the northern waters of Sri Lanka depriving their brethren across the border of their livelihood.

It is still not too late, however, for the Sri Lankan Government to pay more attention to ‘connectivity’ with the rapidly developing southern states of India, viz., Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, and those in the east like Odisha and West Bengal rather than only with Delhi.

It is time for a long overdue shift in its foreign policy direction vis-a-vis India, as it is possible that these states may not be in sync with their own Centre.