The Indian High Commission to the Maldives Sanjay Sudhir says India facilitates 70 percent of the military training given to Maldives National Defense Force personal from abroad.
In an exclusive sit-in with The Press, Sudhir said that capacity building is a basic pillar of India’s approach to fostering bilateral relations with the Maldives. Further explaining, he said that all the bilateral agreements signed between the two countries regarding the military aircraft have built-in articles on providing training to Maldivian personal and that India wants to enforce it.
He said that India has been actively involved in training Maldivian soldiers and that 70 percent of the military training undertaken by the Maldivian servicemen are facilitated by India.
The High Commissioner noted that for India to provide the training required to pilot and man the aircraft, there should be suitable candidates from the Maldivian side.
Sudhir said for the recent gifted Dornier Aircraft, the Indian side had trained a Maldivian pilot and two techs and that they are very much involved with the team manning the aircraft.
He said that it would wrong to say that pilots have not been trained and that it is possible that the trained personnel have left their jobs and sought opportunities outside MNDF.
While speaking about the Indian Military here in the Maldives, the High Commissioner refused to give a specific number of Indian servicemen currently deployed in the island nation.
Instead, he acknowledged that as the two helicopters and the Dornier Aircraft gifted by the Indian government cannot be piloted by Maldivians, Indians are in charge of flying and maintaining these aircraft.
Sudhir also pointed out that the number of Indian servicemen sent to the Maldives has been included in the bilateral agreements signed between the two countries and that they are official documents whose information cannot be shared. He also noted that these agreements have been signed across presidencies here in the Maldives, with three separate Presidents including former President Mohamed Nasheed, former President Abdullah Yameen, and current President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih signing these documents.
The Indian High Commissioner said that many who raise questions about the intentions of these aircraft are missing the service provided by the three aircraft in terms of Joint Economic Zone Surveillance to make this country secure and to make sure that the fish in the Maldivian waters is not exploited illegally by people from outside this country as well to control drug trafficking.
He also noted more than 250 medical evacuations have been made using these aircraft.
