India, Sri Lanka discuss ways to deepen ties

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Sri Lankan counterpart Ranil Wickremesinghe on Saturday discussed the entire gamut of bilateral relations and ways to further deepen the historically close and friendly relations between the two countries.

In the delegation level talks held here, the two leaders exchanged views on regional and global issues and even reviewed the progress in the implementation of various decisions taken during high-level exchanges in the recent past.

The Sri Lankan Prime Minister was on a three-day official visit to India from October 18 to 20, accompanied by his wife Maithree Wickramasinghe.

The Ministry of External Affairs in a statement said that Wickremesinghe's visit is part of India's continuing engagement with the Government of Sri Lanka at the highest level.

"The multi-faceted partnership has been marked by close contacts at the highest political level, growing trade and investment, wide-ranging development cooperation, increasing linkages in the fields of education, health, infrastructure, connectivity and capacity building and broadening people to people contacts," the MEA said in a statement.

Earlier on Saturday, Prime Minister Modi also hosted a luncheon for Wickremesinghe. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh met Wickramasinghe and the Sri Lankan officials separately.

On Friday, Wickremesinghe met with several Congress leaders, including party president Rahul Gandhi, chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance, Sonia Gandhi, former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and senior party leader Anand Sharma.