Maldives President seeks to reclaim ‘lost areas’

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, February 5

Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu has confirmed that the first group of Indian military personnel will return to India before March 10 and the remaining manning two aviation platforms will be withdrawn before May 10 even as he urged the island nation to develop independent military capabilities.

Parliament to discuss boat row

Maldivian Parliament on Monday adopted an emergency motion accusing the government of failing to treat seriously the “storming of Maldivian fishing boats by Indian soldiers’’. The motion moved by an MP close to former President Mohd Nasheed will now be discussed by the Majlis.

Pointing out that he was fulfilling the wish of a large majority of the Maldivians for withdrawal of foreign military troops from the country, Muizzu said his government would recover the lost area of the Maldivian territory, and terminate any agreements made by the state that might undermine the country’s sovereignty, according to a press release by the President’s Office.

Muizzu said the Maldives Defence Forces is on the verge of achieving round-the-clock surveillance capabilities over the nation’s 900,000-square-kilometre Exclusive Economic Zone, the release said.

In his first address to Parliament, boycotted by the Maldives Democratic Party (MDP), Muizzu said diplomatic negotiations were underway for the withdrawal of Indian troops. “As agreed in the latest negotiations, the military personnel on one of the three aviation platforms would be withdrawn before March 10, 2024, and the personnel on the remaining two platforms would be withdrawn before May 10, 2024,” according to the statement.

“Is it a small blessing that we remain independent, under our own power? Even in the present times, there are people in much larger countries who are sacrificing limb and life to gain this right,” Muizzu said, adding that Maldives’ needed to augment its modern military capabilities. Maldives was also reviewing more than 100 bilateral agreements signed with India by the previous government, he added. Maldives will also not renew the agreement enabling foreign nations to measure and map the Maldivian oceans and coastlines.

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