Maldives orders Indian officials to leave after military pact with China

Desk Report

Publisted at 1:53 PM, Tue Mar 5th, 2024

Maldives President Mohamed Muizzu has ordered the Indian military personnel to leave the country by 10 May, reports NDTV.

The move comes less than a week after an Indian civilian team reached the Maldives to take charge of one of the three aviation platforms in the island nation, well ahead of the 10 March deadline agreed by the two nations for the withdrawal of Indian military personnel.

"There will be no Indian troops in the country come 10 May. Not in uniform and not in civilian clothing. The Indian military will not be residing in this country in any form of clothing. I state this with confidence," he said, on a day when his country signed an agreement with China to receive free military aid.

Earlier last month, after a high-level meeting in Delhi on 2 February between the two sides, the Maldivian foreign ministry said India would replace its military personnel operating the three aviation platforms in the Maldives by 10 May and the first phase of the process would be completed by 10 March.

In his maiden address to Parliament on 5 February, he made similar remarks.

There are 88 military personnel manning the three Indian platforms that have been providing humanitarian and medical evacuation services to the people of the Maldives for the last few years using two helicopters and a Dornier aircraft.

President Muizzu rode to power last year on an anti-India stance and within hours of taking oath demanded India to remove its personnel from the strategically located archipelago in the Indian Ocean.

India had agreed to remove their troops from Maldives under the condition that a number of their civilians equivalent to the military presence are brought to operate the aircraft.

Meanwhile, local media reports also said that Maldives has successfully tied up with Sri Lanka to run flights for medical evacuation last week, further indicating that it is bent on removing all Indian troops in whichever category.

Further highlighting that securing true independence is a concept he regards with utmost priority, the President remarked that the State is exerting efforts with due importance "to regain the southern maritime area deprived of the country in addition to expelling Indian troops from the Maldives."

"I am confident we can achieve this. The delay in concluding this task is due to the adverse procedures practiced during the implementation. It was done without even taking the matter to the parliament ... in violation of the Constitution as well," the portal quoted the President as saying.

The Maldives' proximity to India, barely 70 nautical miles from the island of Minicoy in Lakshadweep and 300 nautical miles from the mainland's western coast, and its location at the hub of commercial sea lanes running through the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) gives it significant strategic importance.

The Maldives has been India's key maritime neighbour in the IOR and it occupies a special place in its initiatives such as SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) and the Neighbourhood First Policy."

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