News Analysis: India, Sri Lanka seek renewed strategic engagement

India and Sri Lanka were seeking renewed engagement in regional cooperation, security, economy and trade and cultural fields when Sri Lanka's new President Maithripala Sirisena visited New Delhi this week.

After holding a long meeting at the Hyderabad House here Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sirisena announced a package of agreements and a wide fields of issues they had agreed upon.

The most outstanding agreement is that on civil nuclear energy cooperation, besides those on cultural, educational and agricultural exchanges and collaboration.

Indian officials and media hailed the agreement on civil nuclear energy as a major breakthrough in bilateral ties, as this is the first agreement on nuclear energy with a foreign nation by Colombo. Modi himself also said this showed the strong mutual trust between the two countries.

Sirinena also said this visit is very fruitful and has greatly strengthened the traditional friendship between the two neighbors. He also expressed his hope that India would support Sri Lanka in international fora.

Another noteworthy outcome of the talks between the two leaders is the plan to revive a trilateral maritime security cooperation framework among India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Modi said he would visit the two countries next month to show priority to his intention to build the security network with them.

India and Sri Lanka are linked by thousands of years of human and cultural links. It is by no co-incidence that the two countries have emphasized soft power as a touchstone for renewing bilateral relations. Sri Lanka will join projects in the newly established Nalanda University in Bihar, eastern India, where Lord Buddha was said to have taught his disciples.

Modi also ordered the National Museum of India in Delhi to reduce ticket fees for Sri Lankan tourists and students to let them visit the holy Buddhist relics in the institution.

India's domestic politics are also closely linked with Sri Lanka due to its Tamil population in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, who are ethnically linked with the Sri Lankan Tamils. Any move by the central government of Sri Lanka is closely watched by the political parties of the southern state, which Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party aims to win in the next local election.

While calling for an inclusive and peaceful reconstruction of the northern and eastern Tamil regions of Sri Lanka, Modi refrained from directly commenting on the issue during his joint press conference with Sirisena.

For his part, Sirisena indirectly called on India to support Sri Lanka in its own investigation of alleged human rights violations and war crimes in the last days of the island nation's civil war with Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009.Local analysts say the Modi government must tread carefully in this field as Colombo is opposed to international intervention on the issue while creating its domestic mechanism to deal with the charges.

Meanwhile, trade and economic issues remain priority for Modi in his plan to visit Sri Lanka in March, said analysts. While remaining the top trading partner of Sri Lanka, India is enjoying too much trade surplus and would try to rebalance trade relations by making more investment in the island nation to help it build an export-led economy, said local analysts.

A comprehensive free trade agreement will be the biggest harvest for India during the visit by its prime minister, while talks will also start on services which India is eager to grasp due to its strong banking and insurance industries.

As for nuclear cooperation, the present stage will be "initial" and will focus on exchange of knowledge and expertise, sharing resources in training personnel in charge of nuclear safety, far from jointly launching projects to build nuclear reactors, said Indian officials.

In this sense, the nuclear deal is symbolic rather than substantial and will only serve as a gesture of trust and goodwill from Colombo to Delhi. Enditem