The president of Lanka rejects a military agreement to allow the United States to access the ports

The United States and Sri Lanka are negotiating a draft agreement on status of forces to further strengthen their military ties.

Colombo:

The president of sri Lanka announced on Saturday that he would not allow his government to conclude a military agreement that would allow American troops free access to the ports of the island.

Maithripala Sirisena opposed the draft status-of-forces Agreement (SOFA), which the two countries are currently negotiating to further strengthen their military ties.

Sirisena disagrees with her pro-Western Prime Minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe.

"I will not allow any agreement that would undermine our independence and sovereignty", said Sirisena during a public demonstration in the south of the island. "Several agreements under discussion are detrimental to our country."

"I will not allow the SOFA that seeks to betray the nation. Some foreign forces want to make Sri Lanka one of their bases. I will not allow them to enter the country and defy our sovereignty."

The aim of SOFA is to ensure reciprocal access to port facilities and to allow more free access for military personnel and its subcontractors.

Sirisena said that there would be no bilateral agreement "against the national interest of Sri Lanka" while he was in office. His term ends in January.

He did not name the powers he accused of trying to establish in his Indian Ocean island republic of 21 million people.

However, it was a thinly veiled reference to the United States wishing to strengthen its existing military cooperation.

A year ago, Washington announced $ 39 million to strengthen maritime security in Sri Lanka as China developed its strategic hold on the island of the Indian Ocean.

The increased US interest in Sri Lanka comes as China increases its investments in ports and other construction projects on the island, a key link in Beijing's ambitious Belt and road infrastructure initiative.

The United States had stopped selling arms to Sri Lanka at the height of the Tamil separatist war on the island, which had ended in 2009. The world power has also been highly critical of the human rights record of former President fort's government, Mahinda Rajapakse.

Several senior military officials of the Rajapakse regime have been denied visas to visit the United States.

China pledged to continue to provide financial assistance, including loans, to Sri Lanka, despite warnings about the island nation's growing debt.

In 2017, Sri Lanka granted Beijing a 99-year lease on a strategic port due to the inability to repay Chinese loans for the $ 1.4 billion project.