Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G. L. Peiris will visit India on August 18. During this visit, he is expected to meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and invite him to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo, from November 15-17.
Tamil Nadu’s Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party (DMK) – a former member of the ruling United Progressive Alliance – has asked the government to boycott the CHOGM to be held in Colombo to protest against the attack on the state’s fishermen and war crimes against Sri Lankan Tamils.
New Delhi and Colombo share strong bilateral, historic and cultural relations. Sri Lanka is one of the major recipients of development credit given by India, and is India’s largest trade partner in South Asia. In 2011-2012, bilateral trade between the two countries stood at $5 billion. However, the issue of the treatment of the Tamil-origin people living in Northern Sri Lanka has been a constant hindrance to the progress of bilateral relations.