Foreign Minister Ali Sabry made the remarks to Japanese state media NHK World during his recent visit to Tokyo.
Japan — along with India and France —is a co-chair of Sri Lanka’s Official Creditors’ Committee that on June 26, 2024 firmed up a debt treatment deal with Sri Lanka.
“We cannot have different rules for different countries and only block China. We will not do that. We will not take sides,” Mr. Sabry said in an interview.
In January 2024, Sri Lanka banned the visit of foreign research vessels after India and the United States voiced concern over the visit of at least two Chinese research vessels, Shi Yan 6 and Yuan Wang 5, in the two preceding years.
Sri Lanka’s ports, over the last few years, have emerged as prominent sites of competing strategic interests of big powers. In May last year, China Merchants Group announced a nearly $400 million investment towards constructing a large logistics complex at the Colombo Port, the first major foreign investment to come into Sri Lanka since its default in 2022.
India, along with its Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) or ‘Quad’ partners, the U.S., Japan and Australia, has been focused on countering Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean Region. In 2020, India pushed for the revival of the Colombo Security Conclave with Sri Lanka and the Maldives, expanding it to include Mauritius, the Seychelles, and Bangladesh.
