Sri Lanka frees Indian fishermen ahead of PM’s visit

Wickremesinghe will be on a three-day visit to New Delhi between September 14 and September 16.

Sirisena, who immediately appointed Wickremesinghe prime minister, has tried to fix relations with the West and India that soured during Rajapaksa’s rule.

The talks are expected to touch upon the frequent run-ins between the two countries of fishermen encroaching into each other’s territorial waters.

Wickremesinghe is to leave for India on Monday and will meet his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, Indian President Pranab Mukherjee and Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, among others, during his visit.

The assertion additionally talked about that a request for his or her release by fishermen’s associations of Rameshwaram had been thought-about.

The fishermen, who hail from Tamil Nadu, will be released ahead of his visit beginning tomorrow, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

The inclusion of Trade Minister Samarawickrema in the delegation indicates that there may be some exploratory discussions on India’ proposal to enter into a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with Lanka.

The Sri Lankan Deputy Minister pointed out that India and Sri Lanka have been friends for long and “both of us will continue to be friends”. Earlier, the Modi administration – which has a special concern with the minority Tamil people in Sri Lanka – had hinted that it would urge Colombo to consider the Tamil groups’ reservations about the USA stance on a domestic inquiry before raising the issue at the world body.

Sri Lanka and India have been working on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement or CEPA since 2003.

Ahead of his visit, Prime Minister Wickremesinghe told the press in Colombo that Parliamentarians would bring a “just” political conclusion to the ethnic issue, stressing: “We will implement the 13th amendment within a unitary state”.