> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # India’s Defence Minister Arrives in Sri Lanka, First Such Visit in 38 Years - URL: https://www.jaffnamonitor.com/indias-defence-minister-arrives-in-sri-lanka-first-such-visit-in-38-years/ - Published: 2026-09-08T16:08:41.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-08T16:10:01.000Z - Author: Our Reporter - Tags: September 2026 **COLOMBO, Sri Lanka —** India’s defence minister, Rajnath Singh, arrived in Sri Lanka on Tuesday for a three-day visit, the first by an Indian defence minister since 1988, as the two countries prepare to sign three military agreements and New Delhi presses a security relationship it now describes as central to its position in the Indian Ocean. Mr. Singh is scheduled to meet President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, who also holds the defence portfolio, on Wednesday morning at the Presidential Secretariat. The three agreements to be signed there cover military education, cadet exchanges and the maintenance of Sri Lankan air-defence guns. The visit comes seventeen months after India and Sri Lanka signed a five-year defence cooperation memorandum during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Colombo in April 2025, and nine months after India committed $450 million to rebuilding infrastructure destroyed by Cyclone Ditwah. Mr. Singh landed at Bandaranaike International Airport on Tuesday afternoon, leading a delegation of senior officials from India’s defence and external affairs ministries. He was received by Sri Lanka’s deputy defence minister, Maj. Gen. Aruna Jayasekara, who is retired from the military, and by India’s high commissioner in Colombo, Santosh Jha. Before leaving New Delhi, Mr. Singh described Sri Lanka as one of India’s most important partners under its “Neighbourhood First” policy and its MAHASAGAR regional framework, and said he looked forward to a productive engagement with the Sri Lankan leadership. The last Indian defence minister to visit was K.C. Pant, who travelled to Colombo in 1988 while serving in Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet, at a point when Indian troops were deployed on the island under the Indo-Lanka Accord, and relations between the two governments were at their most strained. Mr. Singh himself was scheduled to visit in September 2023, during Ranil Wickremesinghe’s presidency, but the trip was deferred by New Delhi without explanation. ## Three Agreements Sri Lanka’s foreign minister, Vijitha Herath, who is also the cabinet spokesman, set out the contents of the three agreements at the government’s weekly post-cabinet briefing on Tuesday. The first establishes cooperation between the National Cadet Corps of India and its Sri Lankan counterpart, providing for exchanges, training and joint programs. The second links the two countries’ national defence colleges, allowing exchanges of instructors and course participants. The third covers the maintenance, free of charge, of anti-aircraft guns that India supplied to Sri Lanka in earlier years. Indian defence reporting in the days before the visit had described the third agreement differently, as a prospective supply of new Indian air-defence guns to Sri Lanka, which India manufactures in short- and medium-range variants. Mr. Herath’s account describes servicing of equipment already in Sri Lankan hands. Neither government had reconciled the two descriptions by Tuesday evening. Mr. Herath said the visit should not be read solely through a defence lens, and that its purpose extended beyond military cooperation to the broader bilateral relationship. That framing reflects a persistent domestic sensitivity. The opposition has accused Mr. Dissanayake’s National People’s Power government of entering a secret defence pact with India during Mr. Modi’s 2025 visit and has demanded the memorandum’s release. Mr. Dissanayake has rejected the charge, saying the agreements are open to both sides and that ensuring Sri Lanka’s own security is written into the text. He has said the memorandum would be presented to Parliament. The political charge attaches to the party as much as the pact. The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, the N.P.P.'s parent party, led an armed insurrection between 1987 and 1990 in opposition to Indian intervention in Sri Lanka. ## A Wider Relationship The April 2025 memorandum functions as an umbrella agreement, institutionalising joint exercises, training, naval port calls and equipment cooperation, and providing a framework under which India can supply military hardware. Mr. Singh is expected to review its implementation during his talks. At the time of signing, Mr. Dissanayake publicly reaffirmed that Sri Lankan territory would not be used in ways that undermined India’s security. India’s role in Sri Lanka expanded significantly during the country’s economic collapse in 2022, when New Delhi extended billions of dollars in credit lines as the country ran short of fuel, medicine and food. It grew again after Cyclone Ditwah struck in late 2025\. India’s response, conducted under the name Operation Sagar Bandhu, delivered relief supplies and Indian Army engineering teams, which have been rebuilding road connectivity across seven provinces using prefabricated Bailey bridges. The $450 million package announced in Colombo in December 2025 by India’s external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar, combines a $350 million concessional line of credit with $100 million in grants, with $30 million allocated specifically to bridge connectivity. Mr. Singh is scheduled to review that work and to remotely inaugurate three rebuilt bridges, two in Kurunegala District and one in Batticaloa. ## The Program Mr. Singh met members of the Indian community in Colombo on Tuesday evening at India House. On Wednesday, after the signing at the Presidential Secretariat, his program includes the Indian Peace Keeping Force memorial at Battaramulla, the Ministry of Defence, Parliament and Gangaramaya Temple, according to police traffic arrangements and Sri Lankan press reports. He is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, Defence Secretary Sampath Thuyacontha and the commanders of the three armed services. A reception aboard an Indian Navy vessel is planned for Wednesday evening. On Thursday he travels to Nuwara Eliya to visit the Seetha Amman Temple before departing.