Friday, 20 February 2015 00:41
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Sri Lanka from 13 to 15 March, the first bilateral visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Sri Lanka in over 25 years.
Cabinet Spokesperson Minister Rajitha Senaratne said the visit was scheduled a month after the visit of President Maithripala Sirisena to New Delhi. The previous bilateral visit to Sri Lanka by an Indian Prime Minister was in 1987, when Rajiv Gandhi travelled to Colombo to sign the Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord with the then Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayewardene.
Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was in Colombo in 2008 to attend the SAARC summit and handed over its chairmanship to former President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
However, he skipped the Commonwealth Summit that Sri Lanka hosted in November 2013, a decision which was strongly criticised by sections in New Delhi and Colombo.
