Maldives, Sri Lanka, India to sign maritime cooperation agreement

Sri Lanka has said that the Maldives, Sri Lanka and India will sign a maritime cooperation agreement soon.

The Hindu reports that while speaking at the ongoing Galle Dialogue 2012 Maritime Security Seminar, Sri Lankan Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said that Sri Lanka, India and the Maldives have recently been working on a trilateral agreement for cooperation in carrying out surveillance, anti-piracy operations and to prevent illegal activities including maritime pollution.

“Meetings have already been held at the Ministerial level and at the technical level, and we hope that the Memorandum of Understanding with regard to the trilateral cooperation between our nations will be signed in the near future. I am confident that multilateral agreements of this nature will be greatly instrumental in curbing many of the issues that the naval powers in the region face,” The Hindu quoted Mr Rajapaksa.

Mr Rajapaksa noted that almost half of the world's containerised cargo crosses the Indian Ocean every year, and highlighted the importance of better maritime cooperation between bigger and smaller countries in the region.

“Unfortunately, it has to be admitted that there is a degree of mistrust between the major powers in the Indian Ocean region that presently limits the degree to which effective and long lasting multilateral cooperation can be achieved,” he said, reports The Hindu.

The Hindu also said that while speaking at the seminar, Indian Vice Chief of Naval Staff, R.K.Dhowan said that 40 pirate attacks have so far been repulsed by India, and that “piracy emanating from Somalia has been confined to an area of 700 nautical miles, largely due to effective patrolling and cooperation between navies.”