The President of the Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu, expressed his gratitude to India for the latter’s help in lightening the debt servicing burden on the island nation. He also hoped that New Delhi and Male would forge closer ties and work out a free trade agreement.
He was speaking in a formal Independence Day ceremony in Maldives on Friday. Much of his speech focussed on lauding the government’s foreign policy, citing eight months of “diplomatic success,” according to the office of the President of the Maldives.
Maldives President Muizzu was thankful for the assistance extended by India and China in trimming its debt payment.
He said the Maldivian government is into negotiation of currency swap arrangements with New Delhi and Beijing. The message from this statement was in a bid to handle the local shortage of US dollars.
In the Maldivian president’s statement, he also said that his government was already engaged in negotiating a free-trade agreement between the Maldives and the United Kingdom and hoped something similar would be possible with India.
In particular, the conflict of relations broke out in the form of a diplomatic spat when Mohamed Muizzu’s administration in the Maldives took a reconciliatory stand; it did little to improve ties between the two nations.
Moreover, a month ago, President Muizzu also visited here for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s oath-taking ceremony. Modi came to power for the third straight term.
Early this year, Muizzu had sought debt relief measures in keeping with the repayment of the huge loans that were borrowed from the country by successive governments. Factually, he went to the extent of claiming that India would always remain Maldives’ “closest ally” and there was no doubt about it.
The Edition from Maldives says that during the last year-end, the loan amount which Maldives owes to India is 6.2 billion Maldivian Rufiyaa.
It is important to point out that earlier this year, the International Monetary Fund warned the Maldives that it would face a high risk of debt crisis if drastic policy changes are not undertaken.
Notably, President Mohamed Muizzu of the Maldives has indulged in “anti-India” rhetoric and even spearheaded his election campaign under the slogan “India Out.” That is to say, the central campaign issue for the election was the evacuation of Indian troops from the country, tirelessly brought home by the party of Muizzu.
He has done a number of actions since he came to office that have been considered somewhat odd from the perspective of India-Maldives relations.
As part of his departure from the long-term convention, he did not visit India on his first official visit. Instead, he visited Turkey, and from there he went to China. In his visit, some twenty odd agreements were reached between the two countries that led their relations being further deepened into a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.
Maldives had announced in December last year that they have decided not to renew the agreement arrived at with India over the Hydrographic Survey.
Following the official request by the then Muizzu government to India for withdrawal of its troops, the latter set up a High-Level Core Group to discuss the situation. Indian forces were finally able to depart in May this year.
Days after the Indian soldiers left, Maldives’ Defence Minister Ghassan Maumoon expressed the island nation’s armed forces as capable of operating the three aircraft supplied by India.
A controversy broke out between New Delhi and Male when three Maldivian deputy ministers made negative comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi because of his photographs from his tour to Lakshadweep.
The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, had been canvassing to develop this cluster of Indian islands as a resort tourist destination and encourage domestic tourism.
It has escalated into a huge diplomatic dispute, after which New Delhi called the Maldivian envoy and expressed a strong protest against the posts going viral on the internet. The three deputy ministers were placed on suspension and continue to be so while continuing to receive compensation.
According to statistics from the Maldives Tourism Ministry at the beginning of the year, the number of Indian visitors that visited the Maldives was 33 percent less compared to the previous year.