‘Jaishankar’s visit to Sri Lanka underlines wide scope & agility’

Colombo: The visit of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to Sri Lanka and his meeting with President Ranil Wickremesinghe has furthered bilateral cooperation and brought to the fore the wide scope and the agility of India’s development cooperation partnership with Sri Lanka, the Indian High Commission said here on Friday.

Jaishankar was in Colombo to participate in the 23rd Council of Ministers’ meeting and the 25th Committee of Senior Officials of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) on October 11.

During this visit, his second in 2023, Jaishankar called on President Wickremesinghe and discussed a diverse range of areas pertaining to bilateral ties as the two countries are marking 75 years of diplomatic relations.

Recalling the bilateral economic partnership vision statement issued during the visit of the President of Sri Lanka to India in July 2023, they (Jaishankar and Wickremesinghe) agreed on the need to strengthen multiple dimensions of connectivity such as trade, people-to-people, and energy partnership, among others as outlined in the statement. ‘They also agreed to fast track priority steps for achieving the goals envisaged in the Vision Statement in a time-bound manner,’ the Indian High Commission said in a statement. The visit brought to the fore the wide scope and the agility of India’s development cooperation partnership with Sri Lanka, it said.