PM Modi Meets Maldivian Prez Muizzu, Agrees to Set Up Core Group to Further Deepen Ties

Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi and newly-elected Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu performed a productive assembly on Friday and agreed to arrange a core group to additional deepen their partnership between the 2 nations. The two leaders mentioned methods to improve the bilateral friendship throughout various sectors.

The resolution to arrange the core group was taken on the first assembly between PM Modi and President Muizzu on the sidelines of the COP28 World Climate Action Summit being held in Dubai. PM Modi took to X to share about his assembly with the Maldivian head of state.

”President @MMuizzu and I had a productive assembly right this moment. We mentioned methods to improve the India-Maldives friendship throughout various sectors. We look ahead to working collectively to deepen cooperation for the good thing about our folks”, he mentioned.

As per the Prime Minister’s Office, the dialogue between the 2 leaders included methods to additional strengthen India-Maldives relations in sectors pertaining to financial relations, improvement cooperation and people-to-people ties.

In September, Muizzu, an in depth affiliate of former Maldives President Abdulla Yameen, who cast shut ties with China throughout his Presidency from 2013 to 2018, defeated India-friendly incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih within the presidential runoff.

Modi additionally personally congratulated Muizzu on his assumption of workplace because the President of Maldives.

The exterior affairs ministry mentioned in a press release that each the leaders reviewed the wide-ranging bilateral relations between the 2 nations together with people-to-people linkages, improvement cooperation, financial relations, local weather change and sports activities. The two leaders additionally mentioned methods to additional deepen their partnership and thereby agreed to arrange a core group, the assertion added.

The assembly occurred days after President Muizzu requested India to withdraw 77 Indian navy personnel from the nation and determined to assessment greater than 100 bilateral agreements between the 2 nations.

Muizzu’s request got here at a time when India’s Union Minister Kiren Rejiju paid a courtesy name on the brand new president on the latter’s workplace.

Maldives is India’s key maritime neighbour within the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and occupies a particular place within the Prime Minister’s imaginative and prescient of SAGAR’ (Security and Growth for All within the Region) and the Neighbourhood First Policy’. The nation’s proximity to the west coast of India (barely 70 nautical miles away from Minicoy and 300 nautical miles away from India’s West coast), and its location on the hub of business sea lanes working by the Indian Ocean provides it a big strategic significance to India.

According to observers, Muizzu, a British-educated civil engineer might observe a extra nuanced overseas coverage,regardless of his social gathering’s pro-China rhetoric. This could possibly be as a result of presently the nation faces a precarious financial system with a number of debt repayments due, taking a cue from the worst financial disaster confronted by Sri Lanka.

India stepped in with USD 4 billion in help to Sri Lanka whereas China dithered regardless of huge BRI investments within the nation together with the Hambantota port which Beijing took over for a 99-year lease as debt swap.

(with inputs from PTI)