Starting on right note

The business end of Sri Lankan President M. Sirisena's visit to India promises a new turn to bilateral ties that had come under strain in the last days of his predecessor, Mahinda Rajapaksa's term due to his pro-Beijing tilt on strategic issues. That he chose India as his first overseas destination demonstrates where his priorities lie. Significantly, Sirisena left for India just as his Foreign Minister returned after meeting US Secretary of State John Kerry. Earlier, his maiden port of call was India. This rebuilding of bridges with India and the US demonstrates his intent in achieving closure on the global civil society's consternation over the unaddressed human rights and political issues after Colombo won the war against the LTTE and in choosing a strategic path that is not unduly reliant on China.

 In contrast, Mr. Rajapaksa had elected to ignore India and the West, and instead sought the backing of China and Russia to bail him out at the UN Human Rights Council. The former Sri Lankan President had to pay the price by being forced to endorse China's Maritime Silk Route proposal and permitting the docking of Chinese submarines, both issues on which India had serious reservations. Sirisena has also tried to revive efforts towards addressing the demands of the Tamil community by appointing civilian governors to the Northern and Eastern provinces and promising a permanent resolution of the fishermen's issue. 

The new Lankan regime's revised set of priorities helped achieve forward movement on several issues. These include reviving the broad agreement reached on bilateral nuclear cooperation in 2012 and resolving to put the intermittent India-Sri Lanka-Maldives trilateral maritime cooperation on the fast track. The two sides also decided to speed up talks on bilateral trade, which had reached a saturation point after the spectacular success achieved by the Free Trade Agreement. Visits to Sri Lanka next month by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Prime Minister Narendra Modi should concretise the understanding reached during this visit, remove any lingering misgivings between the two sides and put bilateral ties on a firmer footing.