All Indian soldiers returned home from Maldives, now the relations between the two countries will be put to a new test
All Indian soldiers have returned home from Male as soon as the meeting between Maldives Foreign Minister Musa Zameer and S Jaishankar took place in New Delhi. All Indian soldiers living in Maldives have now returned home. The Maldives government has said that India has withdrawn all its soldiers from Maldives. President Mohammed Moizzu had set a deadline of May 10 to withdraw all Indian soldiers from the country. Today this deadline was ending. This withdrawal of soldiers has taken place at a time when the foreign ministers of both the countries are holding talks in New Delhi on taking forward bilateral relations.
Let us tell you that President Muizzu is considered a pro-China leader. The return of about 90 Indian military personnel deployed in Maldives was a major issue in Moizzu’s election campaign. Hina Waleed, Chief Spokesperson of the President’s Office, told a news portal that the last batch of Indian soldiers deployed in Maldives has been sent back. However, he did not give information about the exact number of Indian soldiers. Waleed said that information about the number of soldiers will be given later. Indian military personnel were deployed in Maldives to operate and maintain two helicopters and Dornier aircraft gifted by India
89 Indian soldiers were in Maldives
The Maldives government had earlier announced that 51 soldiers were sent back to India on Monday. The government had informed about the presence of 89 Indian soldiers in the Maldives, citing official documents. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters on Thursday that the first and second batches of Indian personnel have returned to India and “Indian technical personnel have now been deputed” to operate three Indian aviation platforms. This development comes amid the visit of Maldives Foreign Minister Musa Zameer to India. He met External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday.