India-Sri Lanka talks to focus on development
Wickremesinghe's visit comes after Sri Lanka reversed a decision to award a $300-million housing deal to China in favour of a joint venture with an Indian company
New Delhi: Stepping up development cooperation between India and Sri Lanka will be high on the agenda of talks between visiting Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his Indian host Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indian officials said on Thursday.
Wickremsinghe arrived in New Delhi on Thursday evening and is scheduled to have discussions with Modi on Saturday. The visit comes amid tensions between Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena and Wickremesinghe who are cohabiting in an increasingly uneasy coalition, according to media reports. It also comes against the backdrop of controversial media reports quoting Sirisena as accusing Indian intelligence agency, Research and Analyses Wing (RAW), of plotting his assassination, something that was later rejected as “false" by Colombo.
Wickremesinghe’s visit comes after Sri Lanka reversed a decision to award a $300-million housing deal to China in favour of a joint venture with an Indian company, a Reuters report said. In April, state-run China Railway Beijing Engineering Group Co Ltd won a tender to build 40,000 houses in Jaffna in Sri Lanka’s north, with China’s Exim bank to provide funding. The project was halted after residents demanded brick houses, saying they preferred their traditional type of dwelling instead of the concrete structures the Chinese firm had planned, the report said.
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