ECONOMYNEXT – Sri Lanka President Anura Kumara Dissanayake urged visiting Indian Defence Minister Shri Rajnath Singh to help the island nation’s efforts in combating drug trafficking while promising no harm to the Indian Ocean’s peace, his office said in a statement.
Indian Defence Minister is in Sri Lanka on a three-day official visit amid the signing of three defence deals; this is the first visit by an Indian Defence Minister in 38 years.
“In particular, the President briefed the Indian Defence Minister on the national programme recently launched by Sri Lanka to combat drug trafficking,” the President’s Media Division (PMD) said in a statement.
“He stated that, as the Indian Ocean has become a hub for drug trafficking, Sri Lanka expects India’s fullest support in its efforts to combat the illicit drug menace.”
“The President also expressed confidence that India would extend its fullest support toward extraditing Sri Lankan drug traffickers currently serving prison sentences in India.”
Over recent years, India and Sri Lanka have built a structured, intelligence-driven maritime security partnership to counter the expansion of transnational narcotics syndicates operating across the Indian Ocean.
Geographically positioned along major smuggling routes originating from the Makran Coast and transit hubs in South Asia, both nations rely on coordinated naval patrols, direct intelligence-sharing between the Indian Coast Guard, Indian Navy, and Sri Lanka Navy, and joint maritime capacity-building.
This operational collaboration has regularly resulted in high-value mid-sea interdictions targeting dhows and trawlers attempting mid-sea transfers near the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL).
Beyond maritime domain awareness, bilateral mechanisms extend to information exchanges between India’s Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and Sri Lanka’s National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (NDDCB) to disrupt cross-border supply chains connecting Nepal, South India, and Sri Lankan coastal entry points.
Peaceful Indian Ocean
“The President stated that Sri Lanka would continue to extend its support towards maintaining peace in the Indian Ocean region,” the PMD said.
“He emphasised that Sri Lanka makes decisions taking into consideration both national and regional interests, and that, as a sovereign state, Sri Lanka enters into various agreements with countries around the world while remaining mindful of regional security.”
India has long maintained that a peaceful, secure Indian Ocean free from hostile foreign military footprints is critical to its core national security interests.
Fearing that foreign naval expansion, most notably China’s presence and infrastructure investments in Sri Lankan ports like Hambantota, could turn its immediate maritime neighbourhood into a strategic threat, New Delhi has repeatedly requested that Colombo prevent Sri Lankan territory, waters, or ports from being utilized for activities detrimental to India’s security.
In response, Sri Lanka has adopted a delicate foreign policy balancing act.
While Colombo actively seeks commercial partnerships with major global powers for infrastructure and debt relief, successive Sri Lankan administrations have reassured India of an “India First” approach to regional security, promising that the island nation will not allow its territory or maritime domain to be weaponized or exploited by external actors to threaten India’s security interests.
To operationalize these assurances and demonstrate its commitment to regional stability, Sri Lanka has deepened bilateral defence agreements with India, enforced moratoriums on foreign research vessels entering its ports, and anchored its maritime framework in multilateral groupings like the Colombo Security Conclave. (Colombo/September 09/2026)
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