Foreign Minister S Jaishankar To Make Key Visit To Maldives Next Month, First Since Anti-India President Muizzu's Rise To Power

India's Foreign Minister S Jaishankar will travel to the Maldives next month, marking the first high-level visit from India to the Maldives since the new government, led by the anti-India President Mohamed Muizzu, took charge in November last year.

Jaishankar will stay in the country for two to three days, during which he will meet his Maldivian counterpart, Moosa Zameer, and President Muizzu.

This visit comes after initial friction in relations between India and the Maldives.

Since the new President Muizzu took charge, who won the elections on the back of an anti-India campaign, there has been a strain between the ties of both countries, due to the anti-India and pro-China position taken by President Muizzu.

Muizzu, under his anti-India agenda, scrapped a hydrographic agreement with India, allowed Chinese spy vessels to conduct experiments and surveys in Maldivian waters despite repeated requests by India not to do so, and forced 90-odd Indian maintainers (who were in the country to run, repair, and maintain Indian-gifted military equipment) out of the country.

It is only due to the efforts by the Maldives in the last three to four months that have laid the groundwork for Foreign Minister Jaishankar's visit to the Maldives.

In May, Moosa Zameer visited India, followed by President Muizzu himself attending the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he won the Indian general elections.

The Maldives' Tourism Minister, Ibrahim Faisal, is currently in India to attract Indian tourists back to the Maldives, following a boycott due to offensive remarks by several Maldivian ministers about Indians and Prime Minister Modi.

Notably, tourism is the biggest foreign exchange earner for the Maldives, and Indians, until this incident, were the largest visitors to the Maldives.