Iran expects positive changes in relations with Sri Lanka

Tehran: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, meeting with Sri Lanka’s new Ambassador to Iran Y.K.A. Rohanajith on Sunday, said he expected positive changes in the diplomatic relations between Tehran and Colombo.

“The two countries’ relations should expand on the basis of the existing capacities after the nuclear agreement and the newly created opportunities,” Rouhani said during the meeting in Tehran, Fars News Agency reported.

The Iranian president expressed optimism that the economic ties between the two countries would further broaden and the two governments’ all-out relations align with their national and regional interests.

The Sri Lankan ambassador, lauding Iran as a great country with a several-thousand-year-old culture and civilisation, said Sri Lanka was determined to further develop its friendly ties with Iran.

Reiterating Iran’s important role in the region and the world, Rohanajith said: “Sri Lanka welcomes the nuclear agreement between Iran and the world powers and is looking for diversity in the two countries’ cooperation.”

In relevant remarks in January, Rouhani, congratulating Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on his election, said that Iran hoped to expand the bilateral ties with Sri Lanka “more than ever before”. “I hope in the new chapter that will be opened with the elected choice of the Sri Lankan nation and the responsibility they have given to Your Excellency the historical, friendly relations between our two countries and close cooperation in various field will expand more than ever before,” Iranian President said in a congratulatory message to Sirisena. Iran and Sri Lanka have had official diplomatic relations since 1961.

Currently, two Iranian companies are working on two important projects of dam construction and rural electricity in Sri Lanka.