NEW DELHI: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held talks with Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath in New Delhi on Friday, with discussions focusing on bilateral ties and the evolving regional security situation amid escalating tensions in West Asia.
Following the meeting, Jaishankar said India’s regional engagement with Sri Lanka would continue to be guided by its “Vision MAHASAGAR” and “Neighbourhood First” policies.
In a message posted after the talks, he described the discussions as “warm” and said both sides reviewed ways to deepen cooperation while also exchanging views on regional developments.
The meeting comes as Sri Lanka navigates the fallout from the widening conflict involving Iran and the United States in the Indian Ocean region.
Colombo has maintained a neutral stance in the conflict, balancing its economic ties with both sides. The United States remains Sri Lanka’s largest export market, while Iran is a key buyer of Sri Lankan tea, the island’s primary export commodity.
Sri Lanka was drawn into the crisis earlier this week after granting permission to the Iranian naval vessel IRIS Bushehr to enter its territorial waters following an attack in nearby seas. Authorities evacuated 219 crew members from the vessel to a naval facility.
The rescue operation followed a major escalation in the conflict after a US submarine sank the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in the same waters, leaving 87 sailors dead and 32 injured, who were taken to hospital.
Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake defended the decision to shelter the sailors, describing it as a humanitarian imperative despite the tense geopolitical backdrop. “All our actions are aimed at saving lives and ensuring that humanity prevails,” Dissanayake said.
In an earlier address to the nation, he called the move “the most courageous and humanitarian course of action that a state can take.”
“We jealously guard our non-aligned policy while ensuring that humanitarian values and the saving of lives remain our top priority,” Dissanayake added.
Meanwhile, speaking at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, Jaishankar reflected on broader shifts in global power dynamics, arguing that the international system is moving towards a more fragmented distribution of influence.
“A lot of the analysis is centred around the changes in America. My sense is that the future will be much more multipolar because no country today has hegemony across so many domains that it is an overall hegemon,” he said.
Jaishankar also said expectations that the global order created after World War II or at the end of the Cold War could remain unchanged were unrealistic.
“When we look back at these 70 years, the expectation that we could freeze a 1945 or a 1989 forever was very unrealistic… Life moves on,” he said, adding that "technology and demographic shifts" would be the two major forces shaping global power in the coming decade.