Major General (retd.) S.R. Sinho, a defence expert, on Saturday said the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Sri Lanka should be seen as a good gesture on the part of as India, and added that the bilateral relationship between India and its neighbours has improved.
"It is a very good gesture and sign because not only Sri Lanka, our relations have improved with most of the neighbouring countries. Now, the Prime Minister has signed a number of agreements which is very forth coming. I am sure that the Sri Lankan Government and the people of Sri Lanka, they have come much closer," Major General Sinho told ANI.
He said that ethnically, the people of Sri Lanka are same as ours.
"Sri Lanka has already released 83 fishermen and they have requested, whatever we have, we should also show the same gesture. Sri Lanka is most concerned about maritime security because earlier the relations were strained. But now, the whole thing has cleared. Our relations have grown very strong," he added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in Sri Lanka on the third and final leg of his five-day three-nation tour, is the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Sri Lanka in 28 years.
He will visit Sri Lanka's Tamil heartland Jaffna, a Buddhist temple in Anuradhapura and north-western town of Talaimannar.
He will be the first Indian Prime Minister and only the second foreign leader after British Premier David Cameron to visit Jaffna in the Northern Province, where he will hand over homes built with the help of Indian assistance.
Some 20,000 such homes were built in Jaffna described by India as a flagship cooperation project currently in Sri Lanka.
Prime Minister Modi will also be laying the foundation stone for the iconic Jaffna Cultural Centre.
He will inaugurate the Talaimannar pier railway station and flag off Talaimannar- Medawachchiya train. India was involved in the construction of the railway track.
