Political groups should not try to take advantage of GMR issue: India

Indian government has said that the annulment of the agreement between GMR and Maldives Airports Contracting Company (MACL) is a legal issue and that they hope that political parties will not try to take advantage of the situation.

Indian newspaper Deccan Herald reported their External Minister Salman Khurshid saying that he hopes that fringe political parties in the Maldives will not try and take advantage of the issue in a way that might damage relations between Maldives and India.

He said he hoped "that this will not be used or allowed to be used by some fringe political groups that would lead to deterioration of relations between two, which we value immensely on both sides,” Deccan Herald reports.

He also said that he is happy that the issue is now proceeding within the right boundaries.

The Deccan Herald also reports that Khurshid, in his telephone talk last week with Maldivian Foreign Minister Abdul Samad Abdullah, had said that "legal processes involved in the GMR case should be permitted to take their own course based on the contractual obligations of the parties involved”.

The Maldivian government took control over the Ibrahim Nasir International Airport on Saturday and has handed it over MACL.