External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will arrive in Sri Lanka on a two-day trip on Friday in preparation for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit later this month.

Mr. Modi is scheduled to visit the island nation between March 12 and 15, and Ms. Swaraj will hold discussions on arrangements for the PM’s visit, according to a statement from the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry. She will call on President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The Minister’s last visit here was in 2012, as Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha. Leading a parliamentary delegation, she also handed over the IRCON’s railway project in Sri Lanka. Modi’s is the first bilateral visit by an Indian Prime Minister since Rajiv Gandhi visited the island in 1987, to sign the Indo-Lanka Accord.

Mr. Modi is scheduled to travel across the island, covering Jaffna in the Tamil-majority Northern Province, Trincomalee in the Eastern Province, where India is helping build a power plant, and the ancient city of Anuradhapura in the North Central Province.

Source: TH