Sri Lankan President to Visit India After Parliamentary Polls

Colombo: President Anura Kumara Dissanayake's visit to Delhi at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will happen only after November this year, Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath said on Tuesday.

“We will discuss dates for the visit only after we form the new government,” Herath told reporters here.

Voting for the parliamentary election is to take place on November 14, almost 10 months ahead of the schedule.

Dissanayake was elected on September 21.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar became the first foreign dignitary to meet Dissanayake after the presidential polls. He extended the invitation to Dissanayake from the Indian prime minister.

Earlier in February this year, Dissanayake visited Delhi, as a leader of opposition, for a formal visit, first such by any leader of the Marxist JVP (Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (People's Liberation Front).

The JVP, which Dissanayake heads since 2014, had run a bloody anti-India movement in Sri Lanka during 1987-90. The party had held that the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord which came as Indian intervention to solve Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority demand for political autonomy was a sell out. 

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