Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa arrives, to meet PM Modi today

As he landed here on Thursday evening, he was received by Minister of State (road transport and highways) Gen (retd) V K Singh.

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On Friday, Modi and Rajapaksa are expected to discuss a host of issues, and Delhi will try to assess the newly elected Sri Lankan President’s agenda — both domestic and global.

On the domestic front, Delhi will want to gauge Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s approach towards the ethnic Tamil minorities in the island country.

After External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met him in Colombo earlier this month, Delhi had once again drawn the redline on Tamil minorities in Sri Lanka, for the first time in recent years. Delhi underlined its expectation that the new government in Sri Lanka should carry forward the process of “national reconciliation” and meet the aspirations of the Tamil community. It also outlined “equality, justice, peace and dignity” as the key components of Tamil minorities.

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The government has said that these expectations have been conveyed to Rajapaksa during the meeting between him and Jaishankar. This comes amid concerns in the Tamil community in Sri Lanka.

The Rajapaksa family, which was in power before 2015, has been accused of human rights violations against Tamil minorities. Indian concerns stem from the past record of the Rajapaksas, when they were in office.

This is the first time in recent years that Delhi has underlined these expectations so clearly, especially after five years of Sri Lankan government under President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

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Delhi will also seek to understand the new Lankan President’s attitude keeping in mind the pro-Chinese Rajapaksa brothers at the helm in Colombo. During their term last time, when Gotabaya Rajapaksa was the country’s Defence Secretary from 2005 to 2015, Chinese submarines and ships had docked in Lankan ports — causing a fair bit of concern in Delhi.

Gotabaya, on his part, has said that his country will “maintain an equidistant and yet, cordial relations with all countries”.