Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu wants Indian military personnel stationed in his archipelago nation withdrawn by March 15, an official at his office said on Sunday.
Presidential aide Abdulla Nazim Ibrahim told reporters that Muizzu proposed the removal at a meeting with officials from the Indian embassy in the Maldives and other visiting Indian officials.
The move comes a day after Muizzu returned from China, where he made comments critical of India.
Photo: AFP
Muizzu said his nation’s small size is not a license for anyone to bully the Maldives. His comments were an apparent response to social media calls in India to boycott tourism to the Maldvies after three Maldivian deputy ministers made derogatory posts on social media against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The dispute began last week when Modi posted photographs on social media of himself strolling on the beach and snorkeling in Lakshadweep, an Indian archipelago that his government believes has untapped potential for tourism.
Some in the Maldives saw it as an attempt to lure tourists away from its sandy white beaches and luxury island resorts.
Muizzu suspended the deputy ministers, saying their comments did not reflect government policy, but on his return from China announced plans to free the Maldives of its dependence on India and find alternate places for Maldivians to obtain education and health services, and import staples and medicines.
Maldivians go to hospitals in India and Sri Lanka under a government-sponsored free health program and many of the nation’s staple foods are imported from India.
Muizzu said Maldivians would now be able to also go to hospitals in Thailand and the United Arab Emirates, and staples would be imported from Turkey. He also said medicines would be imported directly from manufacturers in Europe and the US.
India sent the highest number of tourists to the Maldives last year with a share of 11 percent, but Muizzu said that China used to send the most before the COVID-19 pandemic and steps would be taken to double the number visiting.
India and China are competing for influence in the Maldives, which is located strategically along a key shipping route between the east and the west.
At least 75 Indian military personnel are stationed in the Maldives and Muizzu, who is considered pro-China, campaigned on a promise of removing them in the buildup to a presidential election in November last year. His party had waged an “India Out” campaign for months.
Muizzu had accused his election rival and predecessor of compromising national sovereignty by allowing India to station military personnel in the Maldives.
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
DIPLOMATIC THAW: The Canadian prime minister’s China visit and improved Beijing-Ottawa ties raised lawyer Zhang Dongshuo’s hopes for a positive outcome in the retrial China has overturned the death sentence of Canadian Robert Schellenberg, a Canadian official said on Friday, in a possible sign of a diplomatic thaw as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks to boost trade ties with Beijing. Schellenberg’s lawyer, Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), yesterday confirmed China’s Supreme People’s Court struck down the sentence. Schellenberg was detained on drug charges in 2014 before China-Canada ties nosedived following the 2018 arrest in Vancouver of Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). That arrest infuriated Beijing, which detained two Canadians — Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig — on espionage charges that Ottawa condemned as retaliatory. In January
SHOW OF SUPPORT: The move showed that aggression toward Greenland is a question for Europe and Canada, and the consequences are global, not just Danish, experts said Canada and France, which adamantly oppose US President Donald Trump’s wish to control Greenland, were to open consulates in the Danish autonomous territory’s capital yesterday, in a strong show of support for the local government. Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons. Trump last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater US influence. A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns
RSS