Sri Lanka has no intention to cede the Katchatheevu Island, Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath said over the weekend, calling the “rumblings” in India an issue between the political parties there.
“We have our diplomatic channels open to resolve the issue, but what is certain is Sri Lanka will never agree to let go of Katchatheevu, a part of Sri Lanka and established so by international law,” Herath told a TV interview in response to a question on frequent arrests of Indian fishermen in Sri Lankan waters.
Fishermen from India and Sri Lanka are arrested frequently for inadvertently trespassing into each other’s waters. India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar on June 27 said the issue of Sri Lanka arresting Indian fishermen stems from an agreement during the Emergency, imposed in 1975, under which their rights for fishing in some specific areas were given up.
Minister Herath, however, brushed off the issue, saying that “rumblings” over the Katchatheevu issue are “political sparring between the BJP at the Centre and the Opposition Congress Party.” Katchatheevu, an uninhabited island where a Catholic religious festival takes place once a year, was ceded to Sri Lanka by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Government under a maritime agreement signed in 1974.
Another agreement signed in 1976 restricted the fishermen of both countries from fishing in each other’s Exclusive Economic Zones. Minister Herath accused the Indian fishermen of venturing into Sri Lanka’s maritime border illegally to do fishing near Katchatheevu, adding that they not only “plunder the fishing resources” but also damage sea plants.
“But we know for sure that the Indian Government is not in favour of continuous illegal fishing in the Sri Lankan waters,” Minister Herath added. The fishermen issue is a contentious one in the ties between India and Sri Lanka, with Sri Lankan Navy personnel sometimes firing at Indian fishermen in the Palk Strait and seizing their boats in several alleged incidents of illegally entering the island nation’s territorial waters.
– PTI
