Colombo [Sri Lanka], August 14 : The new Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for granting diplomatic clearance to foreign vessels and government or military aircraft in the country received approval from the Sri Lankan cabinet and will likely come into effect next month, reported The Sunday Morning on Sunday.
The Morning is the news website of The Sunday Morning and The Morning newspapers.
The new SOPs, which were drafted following a review after the controversial visit by the Chinese state-owned satellite tracking vessel Yuan Wang 5 in August last year, were approved by the cabinet early last month.
According to The Sunday Morning report, a senior government official close to the matter said the process was likely to be completed by the end of the month or early next month, with the SOPs possibly coming into effect from September.
The importance of the SOPs for Sri Lanka to manage visits by foreign warships, aircraft, and research vessels was underscored in the bilateral discussions between Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the former's recent New Delhi visit.
The new SOPs are seen as a vital tool to prevent the foreign policy debacle of last year, when the Yuan Wang 5 called at the Hambantota Port, triggering a geopolitical hornet’s nest that Colombo would like to avoid in the future, senior Government officials and diplomats, reported The Sunday Morning.
It will also be a key foreign policy instrument in maintaining Sri Lanka’s ‘friend of all’ stance while navigating the increasingly-complicated geopolitical arena, which the Indian Ocean is turning into, the report noted.
The SOPs and Sri Lanka’s balancing act once again came under the spotlight this week, with the arrival of a Chinese hydrographic survey vessel, the Hai Yang 24 Hao, to Colombo Port on Thursday.
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