NEW DELHI, India – Reiterating India’s support for Sri Lanka, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in a press conference said the situation in the island nation is very sensitive and New Delhi is finding ways to help Colombo economically.
Sri Lanka has been facing a mass protest for months over the country’s worst financial crisis since independence, where Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been accused of high-level corruption and economic mismanagement.
“Our commitment is to support the Sri Lankan people because they are our neighbours. They are friendly people,” he said, as ANI reported. “We want to help them as they are going through a very difficult phase. We want to help because of this feeling of friendship. We have been extremely supportive of the island nation in the last few months.”
The minister clarified that India’s “focus is on Sri Lanka’s economic situation” and it does not hold any accountability on the country’s ongoing political crisis.
“We are not involved in the other matters. Only focused on economic aspects of the issue and we are not concerned about other factors. We can not respond to everything that comes on social media,” he exclaimed.
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Under the ‘neighbourhood first policy’, India has responded with urgency to government of Sri Lanka’s request for assistance for overcoming hardships and will enhance economic linkages between the two countries be it through infrastructure connectivity and renewable energy, the report wrote.
“India has delivered aid of around 3.5 billion dollars which has been given through currency swap, financing of food, fuel, medicines and fertilisers,” MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi had said earlier.
India is becoming a stronger and more mutually beneficial partner to Sri Lanka. Apart from assistance during the pandemic and fertilizer chaos, India is also donating basic products to the island nation.
Sri Lanka’s Political and Economic Crisis
Sri Lanka has been facing a mass protest for months over the country’s worst financial crisis since independence, where Sri Lanka’s President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has been accused of high-level corruption and economic mismanagement.
Rajapaksa planned resignation on Wednesday that would leave him without presidential immunity and potentially exposed to a raft of legal charges in the country.
On Saturday, he agreed to step down from his office, after more than 100,000 people massed outside his residence and called for his resignation, as the cable news reported.
