After troop removal demand, Maldives says ending pact with India on water survey

This is the first bilateral pact that the newly-elected Maldives government, which took charge in November, is officially terminating.

At a press conference Thursday, Mohamed Firuzul Abdul Khaleel, Undersecretary for Public Policy at the Maldives President’s Office, said the Muizzu government has decided against renewing the hydrography agreement which expires on June 7, 2024.

“According to the terms of this agreement, if one party wishes to drop the agreement, the other party must be informed of the decision six months before the agreement is set to expire. According to the terms, the agreement automatically renews for an additional five years, otherwise,” he said.

Firuzul said India has been informed that the Maldives does not wish to proceed with the agreement.

Sources in Male told The Indian Express that the Maldives government has conveyed the Muizzu administration’s decision to the Indian High Commission there.

According to Maldives news outlet The Sun, Muizzu made the decision after consulting his cabinet. The Sun quoted Firuzul saying the administration believes it is “best for national security to improve the Maldivian military’s capacity to conduct such surveys, and protect such sensitive information”.

“In the future, hydrography works will be carried out under 100 per cent Maldivian management, and with only Maldivians privy to the information,” he said.

Earlier this month, Muizzu said that the Indian government had agreed to withdraw its soldiers from the Maldives.

Sources in New Delhi had said the issue was briefly discussed in Dubai, on the sidelines of the COP28 summit, where Muizzu met Prime Minister Modi, and that discussions on how to keep the Indian helicopters and aircraft operational were “ongoing” and “the core group” that both sides had agreed to set up would “look at details of how to take this forward”.

Muizzu had chosen Turkey as his first foreign destination, in a departure from past Maldivian Presidents who had chosen India as the first stop after entering office.

The island nation has two helicopters and an aircraft provided by India to the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) for emergency medical evacuations and disaster relief operations. There are 77 Indian military personnel in Maldives to operate these platforms.

Muizzu won the Presidential election, promising to change the Maldives’s ‘India First’ policy and remove the presence of Indian military personnel.