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Narendra Modi begins landmark Sri Lanka visit Narendra Modi: India and Sri Lanka must be good neighbours
(about 14 hours later)
Narendra Modi has begun the first official visit by an Indian prime minister to Sri Lanka in three decades. Narendra Modi has urged Sri Lanka and India to act like good neighbours, during the first official visit to Colombo by an Indian PM for 28 years.
Mr Modi's two-day visit comes weeks after Sri Lanka's new President Maithripala Sirisena visited India on his first official trip. He promised that his neighbours would benefit from India's status as "the new frontier of economic opportunity".
Mr Modi will hold talks with Mr Sirisena and also travel north on a landmark visit to Jaffna. Analysts say Mr Modi is attempting to counter the increasing influence of China on its island neighbour.
Jaffna was worst affected by the civil war, which lasted from 1983 to 2009 and killed more than 70,000 people. India's failed effort to broker a peace deal in Sri Lanka's civil war in the 1980s helped to sour relations.
Mr Modi arrived in Colombo early on Friday in what is the last leg of his three-nation tour of Indian Ocean island nations, including the Seychelles and Mauritius. In recent years, China has offered cheap loans and helped Sri Lanka with major infrastructure projects.
He will address parliament and, on Saturday, visit Jaffna to hand over some 20,000 homes built with the help of Indian aid, reports say. Former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was voted out of office in January, openly hailed his close relationship with Beijing.
"I see this visit as an opportunity to further strengthen our relationship in all its dimensions - political, strategic, economic, cultural, and above all, people to people contacts," Mr Modi said ahead of his visit. However, the new government of Maithripala Sirisena has announced a review of all major deals with China amid claims of corruption.
With his trip to India last month, Mr Sirisena made it clear ties with Delhi were a priority, unlike his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa, who forged closer ties with India's rival China. Mr Sirisena made his first overseas trip as president to India last month, apparently indicating a willingness to revive the relationship.
During Mr Rajapaksa's rule, China invested billions in loans and infrastructure projects in the island nation. Last year, a Chinese warship and two submarines visited Colombo port, much to the dislike of the Indian authorities. Mr Modi, in a speech to Sri Lanka's parliament, said the future of any country was influenced by the state of its neighbours.
Mr Modi will be the first Indian prime minister to hold bilateral talks in Colombo since 1987. "The future I dream for India is also a future that I want for our neighbours," he said.
During his trips to Seychelles and Mauritius, Mr Modi spoke about boosting security co-operation. In Mauritius, he commissioned an India-built naval patrol ship. "The world sees India as the new frontier of economic opportunity, but our neighbours should have the first claim on India."
Botched peace plan
Mr Modi also urged the new Sri Lankan government to push forward with post-war reconciliation.
He said Tamils should be able to live "a life of equality, justice, peace and dignity in a united Sri Lanka".
On Saturday, the Indian leader will travel to Jaffna, a Tamil-dominated city that was ravaged during the 1983-2009 civil war.
Rajiv Gandhi was the last Indian prime minister to visit the island, when Tamil separatist rebels were escalating their fight into a full-scale conflict.
He sent peacekeepers and framed a peace plan that failed to end the fighting and led to accusations that India was meddling in Sri Lanka's affairs.
Mr Gandhi was hit with a rifle butt by a Sri Lanka sailor during his 1987 visit. Four years later, he was assassinated by a Tamil Tiger suicide attacker in southern India.