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Kashmir attack: FM says SL ‘neutral’ after President expresses solidarity with India
View(s):By our Diplomatic Editor
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Friday conveyed Sri Lanka’s “solidarity and shared commitment” with India during a telephone call with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi following a terrorist attack that killed 26, mostly domestic tourists, earlier this week in Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir.
“We stand with India,” President Dissanayake said.
in an X tweet, squarely pitting Sri Lanka on India’s side as the Indian government accused Pakistan of instigating cross-border terrorism and fresh tension between the two nuclear power nations rose to new heights.
Pakistan has denied involvement in the attacks and pointed out that its own army has been targeted by the terrorists involved in the attack on innocent civilians.
The United Nations, which has called for a plebiscite to decide the sovereignty of the scenic state, which is contested by both countries since the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, has called for ‘maximum restraint’ by both nations as India reacted strongly with retaliatory measures, including cutting off shared waters from the Indus River to Pakistan. Visas for Pakistani visitors have been stopped and road links between the two countries closed.
President Dissanayake’s comments come weeks after the signing in Colombo of an Indo-Lanka defence memorandum of understanding (MoU), which his government has stated cannot be made public without India’s approval.
The Indian Prime Minister has, however, publicly stated that the national security of both Sri Lanka and India are “interconnected and codependent”, comments that have been critically noted by opposition parties and political analysts in Colombo, seeing the secretive MoU as breaking Sri Lanka’s non-aligned policy.
An Indian High Commission spokesperson said that it was not a ‘defence pact’ but an MoU on defence cooperation and that all the details of the MoU have been explained in detail.
In a background briefing note given after Prime Minister Modi’s visit, the Indian High Commission said the MoU is an umbrella document that encapsulates ongoing defence exchanges and activities and will help streamline the processes related to training and capacity building, service staff talks, joint exercises, mutual port calls, bilateral visits and defence industry cooperation.
Meanwhile, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said the MoU is a general cooperation agreement and has nothing to do with the situation like the one evolving between India and Pakistan. He said Sri Lanka remains neutral on the matter, with no official communication expected for now.
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