Jaishankar to begin 3-day visit to Sri Lanka today

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will go to Colombo on Tuesday for a three-day visit to Sri Lanka, during which he will hold talks with the country’s top leadership and discuss issues of mutual and bilateral interests.

This will be the first visit by Jaishankar in the new year. Jaishankar will also be the first foreign dignitary to visit the island nation in 2021, and his visit will be the first since Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa assumed full presidential powers through the twentieth amendment to the Constitution adopted last year.

Jaishankar will hold talks with the Lankan President, PM Mahinda Rajapaksa and his counterpart Dinesh Gunawardena.

His visit takes place amid concerns raised by the Colombo Port trade unions on a proposed joint venture with India on the Colombo Port’s Eastern Container Terminal. Unions and leftist opposition groups have been mounting public opposition to the port deal.