Sri Lanka says Chinese military survey ship will port only to refuel
By Uditha Jayasinghe
COLOMBO (Reuters) – A Chinese language army survey ship will go to a strategic port in crisis-hit Sri Lanka later this month solely to refuel, a cupboard spokesman mentioned on Tuesday, after neighbouring India raised considerations over the vessel’s journey to the Indian Ocean island.
Delivery information from Refinitiv Eikon confirmed the analysis and survey vessel Yuan Wang 5 was en path to Sri Lanka’s Hambantota, a $1.5 billion Chinese language-built port that India worries might be used as a army facility.
“It’s coming to refuel and never for some other objective,” cupboard spokesman Bandula Gunawardana instructed reporters, including that the overseas minister had briefed Sri Lanka’s new President Ranil Wickremesinghe on the matter.
“President instructed Cupboard that diplomatic efforts shall be made to work with each nations in order to not create any points,” Gunawardana mentioned.
China final week mentioned it hoped “related events” would chorus from interfering with its respectable maritime actions.
India, which has spent billions in current months to maintain Sri Lanka afloat amid its worst financial disaster in seven many years, mentioned it was monitoring the deliberate go to of the Chinese language ship.
Diplomatic relations between India and China have been strained since 2020 after clashes between troops alongside a distant Himalayan border. At the very least 20 Indian and 4 Chinese language troopers have been killed within the combating, which led to an enormous build-up of troops on either side.
Overseas safety analysts describe the Yuan Wang 5 as considered one of China’s newest space-tracking ships, used to watch satellite tv for pc, rocket and intercontinental ballistic missile launches.
The Pentagon’s annual report on China’s army modernisation says the Yuan Wang ships are operated by the Strategic Help Pressure of the Individuals’s Liberation Military.
(Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Modifying by Bernadette Baum)
