The agreement between Maldives and India is not to simply remove the Indian troops currently operating the military flights granted by the country, but to replace them with civilians who will perform the same duties, a state official explains.
Maldives and India have agreed that India will recall the military personnel currently stationed in Maldives to work on the operation of the military aircrafts gifted to Maldives by India. In their place, India will be sending civil personnel who can carry out the same duties.
This agreement was reached at the second meeting of the High Level Core Group held on Friday in New Delhi. The High Level Core Group is a committee consisting of senior delegates from both Maldives and India, formed based on discussions held between President Dr Mohamed Muizzu and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi when they met on the sidelines of the COP summit held in Dubai earlier.
This detail of the agreement was shared with Mihaaru News by a senior official of the government.
However, neither of the official statements released - by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) in Maldives, and their counterpart Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in India - made any mention of this detail.
India's MEA statement said, "Both sides [also] agreed on a set of mutually workable solutions to enable continued operation of Indian aviation platforms that provide humanitarian and medevac services to the people of Maldives".
The MoFA elaborated somewhat more, stating, "Both sides agreed that the Government of India will replace the military personnel in one of the three aviation platform by 10 March 2024, and will complete replacing military personnel in the other two platforms by 10 May 2024".
Speaking to Mihaaru News, the government official explained that the MoFA's statement said 'replace the military personnel' instead of the more direct 'remove', as they were, in fact, referring to the military personnel being replaced by civil personnel, also from India.
Earlier, during his presidential campaign speeches, President Dr Mohamed Muizzu stated that his administration would train Maldivians to take over the operation of the gifted aircrafts, expressing his belief that there are persons capable of the task in-country.
Removing Indian troops from Maldives is also, in itself, a presidential pledge of President Muizzu, one he said he would achieve within his first 14 weeks in office.
The government official stated that this current arrangement where Indian military will be recalled by May 10 is a success in achieving that goal of the President.
The government has also announced that it is working to commence air ambulance services in March. Two Dash 8 planes of Maldivian Airlines is being repurposed for use as air ambulances under this initiative.
Additionally, air ambulance services between Maldives and Sri Lanka are also set to be introduced next month.
Besides these two services, the government has also announced plans for the establishment of emergency and medevac helicopter services in the country.
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