Mohamed Muizzu Seeks Debt Relief From India : Since becoming the President of Maldives, Mohammed Muizzu has been maintaining an anti-India stance. But now his stance towards India seems to be soft. Mohammad Muizzu now adopted a conciliatory stance and said that India will remain a close ally of his country. Not only this, he has also demanded loan concession from India.
In fact, by the end of last year, Maldives owed India approximately 409 million US dollars. Since taking oath as president in November last year, pro-China Maldivian leader Muizzu had adopted a tough stance towards India and demanded that Indian military personnel operating three aviation platforms be sent back from their country by May 10. .
In his first interview with local media on Thursday after assuming office, Muizzu said India played an important role in providing assistance to Maldives and implemented the largest number of projects. According to the news of Maldives news portal ‘Edition.MV’, Muizzu said that India will remain a close ally of Maldives and there is no doubt about it. India has been providing humanitarian and medical services to the people of Maldives for the last few years through two helicopters and one Dornier aircraft.
Muizzu appealed to India to include debt relief measures for Maldives in repayment of huge debts taken by the governments. These positive comments of Muizzu towards India have come before the parliamentary elections to be held in Maldives in mid-April. He said that Maldives has taken loan on a large scale from India.
He said, he is currently in discussion with the Government of India to explore options to repay the loan as per the economic capabilities of Maldives. Referring to his discussions with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Dubai on the sidelines of the COP28 summit in Dubai in December 2023, Muizzu said, I also told Prime Minister Modi during our meeting that I do not intend to stop any project. . Instead, I expressed my desire to accelerate them.
Responding to a question about Indian military personnel, Muizzu described this as the only case of dispute with India regarding the presence of Indian military in Maldives and said that India has also accepted this fact and has taken back the military personnel. Has agreed to call. He said, it is not right to reject or ignore the aid given from one country to another. He claimed that he did not take any such step or make any such statement which would create tension in the relations between the two countries. Muizzu said his government worked to find sensible solutions through discussions to deal with the issue of Indian Army in Maldives.
