Sources said the annual defence dialogue between defence secretary Shashi Kant Sharma and his counterpart Gotabhaya Rajapakshe, the brother of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was scheduled to be held in Colombo on March 25.
With India likely to vote against Sri Lanka in the UNHRC a few days from now, it was not considered prudent to hold the defence dialogue almost immediately after the vote. ``Sharma was slated to leave for Colombo during the weekend...but it has been cancelled,'' said a source.
Both the defence and the external affairs ministries, however, were at pains to officially emphasise the dialogue had not been scrapped. ``The dialogue was not firmly fixed for March 25. The date was only one of the options being explored. It will now be held at a mutually convenient date after the Parliament session, probably sometime in late May,'' said an official.
But sources insisted the defence dialogue had indeed been set for March 25 - that in any case was after the ongoing budget session in Parliament goes into a month-long recess on March 22 — to chart out the roadmap for bolstering bilateral defence ties.
India has for long been striving to strike a fine balance between larger strategic considerations, in the backdrop of China making steady inroads into Lanka, and domestic political considerations because discrimination against Lankan Tamils by the majority Sinhalese in the island nation continues to be a hugely emotive issue in Tamil Nadu.
But the UPA government's hand is now being forced due to the Rajapaksa government's refusal to stick to its commitments to properly rehabilitate the war-ravaged Tamils in the island nation, especially after pictures of the cold-blooded killing of 12-year-old Balakrishnan, son of slain LTTE chief V Prabhakaran, has further inflamed passions in Tamil Nadu.
Even last year, the UPA government had been forced to shift 27 Sri Lankan military personnel being trained at the Tambaram airbase near Chennai to neighbouring Karnataka after political parties in TN had raised a storm.
The Indian defence establishment has been according top priority to defence ties with Sri Lanka for several years now. Just last December, for instance, Army chief General Bikram Singh had visited the island nation.
Similarly, while India may train soldiers from several countries, ranging from Indian Ocean Region states to African and Central Asian nations, Lanka gets special treatment. Around 800 to 900 Sri Lankan military personnel are trained in different Indian military establishments every year.
Even when the Sri Lankan forces were earlier battling the LTTE, India had provided military equipment like 24 L-70 guns, 24 battle-field surveillance radars, 11 USFM radars, four Indra-II radars and 10 mine-protected vehicles to the island nation. The two nations also cooperate in intelligence sharing and undertake `coordinated' naval patrolling.
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