MALE, 3 Oct: The president-elect of the Maldives said he will stick to his campaign promise to remove Indian military personnel stationed in the archipelago state, promising he would initiate the process.
\nMohamed Muiz told his supporters gathered Monday night at a celebration of his election victory that he wouldn\u2019t stand for a foreign military staying in the Maldives against the will of its citizens.
\n\u201cThe people have told us that they don\u2019t want foreign military here,\u201d he said.
\nIt\u2019s a serious blow to India in its geopolitical rivalry with China in the India Ocean region, where the Maldives\u2019 presidential runoff election Saturday was seen as a virtual referendum on which of the regional powers would have the biggest influence on the archipelago.
\nOutgoing President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who was elected president in 2018, was battling allegations by Muiz that he had allowed India an unchecked presence in the country. Muiz\u2019s party, the People\u2019s National Congress, is viewed as heavily pro-China.
\nMuiz\u2019s main campaign theme was about an alleged threat to the Maldives\u2019 sovereignty by some Indian military personnel on an island, part of the party\u2019s yearslong \u201cIndia out\u201d strategy.
\nSolih insisted that the Indian military\u2019s presence in the Maldives was only to build a dockyard under an agreement between the two governments and that his country\u2019s sovereignty won\u2019t be violated.
\nThe number of Indian troops in the Maldives is unknown. Critics say the secrecy behind the agreement between the two governments regarding the placement of military personnel and their role has led to suspicion and rumor. Known activities of the Indian military include operating two helicopters donated by India and assisting in the rescue of people stranded or faced with calamities at sea. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MALE, 3 Oct: The president-elect of the Maldives said he will stick to his campaign promise to remove Indian military personnel stationed in the archipelago state, promising he would initiate the process. Mohamed Muiz told his supporters gathered Monday night at a celebration of his election victory that he wouldn\u2019t stand for a foreign military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-225332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}