Muizzu Govt suggests India to deploy civilians to operate aircraft, choppers it provided to Maldives after withdrawal of military personnel

New Delhi: Even as it asked New Delhi to withdraw its military personnel from the Maldives, President Mohamed Muizzu’s government in Malé suggested that India could deploy civilians to operate the aircraft and the two helicopters it had provided to the archipelago for emergency evacuation of people from its remote islands.

The new regime in Malé has set March 15 as the deadline for India to withdraw its military personnel from the Maldives. The two sides are now discussing “mutually workable solutions” for continuing the operations of the aviation platforms provided by India to the Maldives for providing humanitarian and medical evacuation services to the people of the island nation.

Though the Muizzu Government had initially stated that India had 77 military personnel in the Maldives, it on Sunday updated the count to 88. Most of them are deployed to operate and fly the Dornier aircraft and two Advanced Light Helicopters gifted by India to the Maldives for emergency evacuation of people from the remote islands.

The ‘high-level core group’ set up by two governments to discuss the issue already had its first meeting in Malé on Sunday. Even when the meeting was on at the office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of the Maldives, a senior official of the office of the island nation’s president had a news conference and announced that March 15 had been set for India to withdraw all its military personnel from the country.

Randhir Jaiswal, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) of the Government of India, told journalists in New Delhi that discussion on “mutually workable solutions” with the Maldivian Government would continue. He said that the next meeting of the ‘high-level core group’, comprising senior officials and diplomats of the two sides, would take place in New Delhi early next month.

A source told DH that the Muizzu Government in Malé did not want New Delhi to withdraw the aircraft and the helicopters from the Maldives and instead suggested that they could be operated by civilians after the withdrawal of India’s military personnel from the Indian Ocean nation. The proposal was discussed during the first meeting of the ‘high-level core group’ in Malé on Sunday. It would again come up for discussion during the next meeting in New Delhi, added the source.

Muizzu’s campaign for the presidential polls in September 2023 saw him opposing and promising to reverse Solih’s ‘India First’ policy of treating India as a preferred partner for the Maldives and lessening its reliance on China. He kept his poll promise and formally asked India to withdraw all its military personnel from the Maldives immediately after taking oath on November 17. However, during his meeting with India’s Union Minister Kiren Rijiju a day after being sworn in, the new president of the Maldives, acknowledged the role of India’s military personnel and the aviation platforms in humanitarian services and emergency evacuation of people from the remote islands of the Maldives.

Rijiju represented the Government of India at the swearing-in ceremony of Muizzu.

“We remain committed to our projects and to take them forward. We have been an important development partner of the Maldives," he said at his weekly media briefing while replying to a question,” Jaiswal told journalists in New Delhi, He was replying to a question about the fate of the development projects funded by India in the Maldives. “We remain committed to doing all things that we can do as a development partner of the Maldives.”