US Senator urges Quad to be proactive in crisis-hit Sri Lanka

NEW DELHI, JUNE 14

Appreciating the assistance provided by India, US Senate Foreign Relations Committee chief Bob Menendez has urged the four-nation Quad to also take a “more proactive role” in addressing Sri Lanka’s political and economic crisis.

In a letter addressed to all four Foreign Ministers of the Quad grouping, he said there is much more the Quad could do in the Indian Ocean neighbourhood, starting with Sri Lanka. “The origins of the Quad lie in the collective response by our four nations to the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. In the spirit of that tradition, today’s iteration of the Quad can lead the way in working to avoid an economic implosion in Sri Lanka that could spark a humanitarian crisis with wider, destabilising, regional impacts,” he wrote.

India, he noted, had already taken a “proactive role in providing loans and humanitarian assistance to the Sri Lankan government to avoid a meltdown”.