The Chinese scientific research ship “Experiment 6” will arrive in Sri Lanka in October 2023.
Colombo:
Sri Lanka said it would allow foreign offshore research vessels to resupply at its ports, a senior official said, after China protested to Colombo to allow a German research ship but rejected a similar request from Beijing, despite a year-long ban on such vessels.
This is the first official acknowledgment that Sri Lanka will allow foreign vessels since President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government imposed a year-long ban on offshore research vessels last December after India and the United States raised strong safety concerns over the vessels. Research vessel for resupply. Two Chinese high-tech scientific research vessels have visited within 14 months.
“The ban on foreign ships is for research purposes and not for replenishment,” Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Niluka Kadurugamuwa was quoted as saying by the Future Economy portal.
“There was a German research ship doing resupply recently and Sri Lanka allowed it,” he said.
The Chinese Embassy in Colombo strongly protested against a move to allow a German research ship to dock at the port earlier this month, after Sri Lankan authorities in February rejected Beijing’s request to build one.
Diplomats told ET that China’s outcry was also because Sri Lanka’s ban was imposed under pressure from India.
When the ban was announced, the government did not specify its stance on requests for resupply or crew changes from foreign research vessels.
Sri Lanka is introducing SOPs (standard operating procedures) for handling foreign research vessels.
In the 14 months to November 2023, two Chinese spy ships were allowed to dock in Sri Lankan ports, one requesting supplies and the other conducting research.
The Chinese scientific research vessel “Experiment 6” arrived in Sri Lanka in October 2023 and docked at the Port of Colombo to conduct “geophysical scientific research” in cooperation with the island nation’s National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA).
In August 2022, the Chinese Navy Yuanwang 5 ship docked at Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka for resupply.
Both incidents prompted strong protests from India, citing security concerns in the Indian Ocean. New Delhi is concerned that Chinese ship tracking systems may try to spy on Indian defense installations.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
