Defence pact with India to be presented in Parl: Lanka prez

President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has said that the defence pact with India would be presented in parliament soon.

Dissanayake was responding to opposition criticism that his NPP government had entered a secret defence pact with India when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Sri Lanka from April 4 to 6 and has been demanding that the MoU be revealed.

“They are creating false narratives. These are imaginary monsters created by them without seeing it. There are agreements between the countries, they are open for both sides. It is our responsibility to ensure our own security. This has been stated in a clause in the agreement”, Dissanayake said during a TV talk show Friday night.

Dissanayake had ensured Sri Lanka’s consistent position that its soil would not be allowed to be used for any anti-Indian activity so as to endanger its giant neighbour’s national security concerns.

Modi, in his banquet speech, had thanked Dissanayake for this position.

The opposition has riled the National People’s Power (NPP) for signing pacts with India as its mother party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) in 1987-90 had led a bloody rebellion to protest a direct Indian intervention in Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority issue.

The Rajiv Gandhi-Jayawardena signed Indo-Lanka Peace Accord brought in constitutional changes prescribing a council for each of Sri Lanka’s nine provinces.

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