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Swaraj leaves for Sri Lanka ahead of Modi visit
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SME Times News Bureau | 07 Mar, 2015
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday left for Sri Lanka to
lay the ground for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the island
nation next week.
Modi will be in Sri Lanka on March 13-14,
during which he will hold meetings with President Maithripala Sirisena
and other senior leaders across the political spectrum.
Modi is
to address the Sri Lankan parliament on March 13. His will be the first
state visit by an Indian prime minister after 1987 when then prime
minister Rajiv Gandhi visited the island nation.
Prime Minister Modi is also scheduled to visit Jaffna.
The
visit by Modi comes as Colombo has decided to suspend the $1.5 billion
Colombo Port City Project with China, pending an examination of approval
obtained by the Chinese project proponent.
Sri Lankan government
spokesman and Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne announced in Colombo on
Thursday that the cabinet had, on Wednesday, approved a proposal by
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to immediately suspend
implementation of the Colombo Port City Project (CPCP) being built on
reclaimed land next to the Colombo harbour port.
The government
is to advise the contractor China Communications Construction Company
Limited (CCCC) to present, within a period of two weeks, all approvals
that it had obtained from relevant institutions for implementation of
the project, according to The Island daily.
Wickremesinghe had said that the CPCP had been signed without cabinet approval and following due procedure.
India
has opposed part of the agreement that would give ownership of 20
hectares of land on a freehold basis to the Chinese contractor, a state
owned company. India uses the Colombo Port primarily for trans-shipment
purposes, said The Island.
President Sirisena announced recently
that all projects entered into with China, including the CPCP, would be
thoroughly re-assessed during his scheduled official visit to Beijing
this month.
Sushma Swaraj will hold talks with her counterpart
Mangala Samaraweera, who visited India in January after the new
government of President Sirisena took over.
Sirisena visited India in February on his maiden foreign trip after taking over in January.
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