S Jaishankar in Colombo for talks with Sri Lankan leadership

He will be in Sri Lanka until February 20 and meet President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and other top officials. Jaishankar will discuss the possibilities for cooperation in sectors like power, highways, airport and hydrocarbon.

His visit assumes significance in the light of Sri Lanka’s desire to seal an Economic and Technological Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) with India, officials have said.

The agreement seeks to improve technological and scientific cooperation among institutions, boost standards of goods and services to enable them compete in global markets, and expand opportunities for manpower training and human resource development.

“The visit will continue the tradition of close exchanges with Sri Lanka that has gained momentum in the last two years… The visit would help in taking stock on various decisions taken during the meetings between the two leaderships,” External Affairs Ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup has said.

Jaishankar will visit China to attend the first round of India-China Strategic Dialogue on February 22, after which he will be in Dhaka from February 23-24.