Prime Minster Ranil Wickremesinghe states that the Navy has been informed to alert on a possible submarine attack threat.
He stated this at an event held in Colombo.
Addressing the event, Prime Minister said:
“Now we have a new concept, the ‘Indo-Pacific’, put forward by the USA.
China views the Indo-Pacific as a mechanism for containing China in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and thereby increasing its strategic vulnerability. Now we have also seems to have got caught on it.”
“We have the Hambantota harbor which we made in to a Public private partnership with China Merchant and our own Sri Lanka Ports Authority. We have the Port City and Hambantota is already getting a type of publicity which the government of Sri Lanka could have never ensured. That is to become a Chinese Naval base.”
“Our agreement with China, with China Merchant and China government is that the security of Sri Lanka and the Hambantota Port will lie with the Sri Lanka government and the Sri Lanka Armed Forces. That has been accepted.”
“The customs, the immigration and the police with the port cargo company, the Southern command itself is shifting from Galle to Hambantota”, pointed out the Prime Minister.
“We have asked the Navy also to have more emphasis on anti-submarine warfare within our capabilities. You can see we are increasing the number of show patrol vessels. We will ensure that we can maintain the security of the Hambantota harbor.”
PM Wickremesinghe goes on to say that it doesn’t help china to have a base there as it is ‘in the middle of nowhere’.
“Then the next important phase is that we are also now conducting negotiations with Indian Airport Company for a Public-Private Partnership with the Indian Airport Company and our Civil Aviation Authority to run the Mattala Airport. So no one can say that we have handed over everything to China”, he further said.
The PM continued to say that Hambantota Port has far more publicity than it deserves and that he hopes it will help in the commercial success of the harbor, the airport as well as the industries and other enterprises that will come in top Sri Lanka.
