New Delhi: In the wake of the failure of a major security -related strategic move by India with the Indian ocean nation Seychelles for “the Development, Management, Operation and Maintenance of Facilities” on the Assumption Island in that country, Seychelles President Danny Faure is making a six-day official visit to India from June 22 to 27. India had in January this year inked an agreement on this with Seychelles which —much to the dismay of New Delhi — could not be ratified by the Seychelles Parliament owing to the Opposition parties in that country that were fiercely opposing the project. Sounding the death knell of the project recently, Mr. Faure had recently reportedly told his country that Seychelles would build the facilities itself. New Delhi could try to re-negotiate the agreement during the visit.
On Friday, the MEA said, “The state visit of President Faure is part of regular high level exchanges between India and Seychelles, and will accord an opportunity to review our wide-ranging cooperation including in fields of defence and security and development partnership.”
But just hours before the MEA announced the visit, a top Seychelles foreign affairs ministry official told an international news agency the Seychelles parliament would not ratify the pact allowing India to build naval facilities on the Assumption island and that the government would simply not present the agreement to the National Assembly for approval because opposition members had already said they would not ratify it. Opposition lawmakers had reportedly argued that allowing India access to Assumption, which is near a busy shipping route, would be surrendering territory to another country and joint management of the facility with India undermined the 115-island nation’s sovereignty.
