India to replace military personnel in 3 aviation platforms in Maldives by May 10

New Delhi: India on Friday agreed to start withdrawing its military personnel deployed in the Maldives by March 10 and to complete the process by May 10.

New Delhi agreed to withdraw by March 10 military personnel deployed to maintain and operate one of the three “aviation platforms” India provided to the Maldives for humanitarian services and medical evacuation from far-flung islands of the archipelago. The military personnel deployed for operating the two other “aviation platforms” will be withdrawn by May 10.  

President Mohamed Muizzu’s government had earlier set March 15 as the deadline for India to withdraw its military personnel from the Maldives.

The ‘high-level core group’ set up by two governments to discuss the issue had its second meeting in New Delhi on Friday. The meeting took place even as a video of the armed men of the Indian Coast Guard aboard three fishing vessels of the neighbouring archipelago escalated tension between the two nations.

The two sides agreed on “a set of mutually workable solutions to enable continued operation of Indian aviation platforms that provide humanitarian and medevac (medical evacuation) services to the people of (the) Maldives”, according to a press release issued by the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India after the meeting. It, however, did not refer to any timeline for the withdrawal of the military personnel.

“Both sides agreed that the Government of India will replace the military personnel in one of the three aviation platforms by 10 March 2024, and will complete replacing military personnel in the other two platforms by 10 May 2024,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of the Maldives stated in a press release issued in Malé.

Neither New Delhi nor Malé officially confirmed if India would replace the military personnel with civilian professionals to operate the aviation platforms provided to the Maldives.

Sources in New Delhi however stated that Malé had agreed to allow India to deploy civilians to operate and maintain the aviation platforms after the withdrawal of the military personnel.

Though the Muizzu Government had initially stated that India had 77 military personnel in the Maldives, it later updated the count to 88. Most of them are deployed to operate and fly the Dornier aircraft and two Advanced Light Helicopters gifted by India to the Maldives for emergency evacuation of people from the remote islands.

Muizzu’s campaign for the presidential polls in September 2023 saw him opposing and promising to reverse his predecessor Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s ‘India First’ policy of treating India as a preferred partner for the Maldives and lessening its reliance on China. He kept his poll promise and formally asked India to withdraw all its military personnel from the Maldives immediately after taking oath on November 17. However, during his meeting with India’s union minister Kiren Rijiju a day after being sworn in, the new president of the Maldives, however, acknowledged the role of India’s military personnel and the aviation platforms in humanitarian services and emergency evacuation of people from the remote islands of the Maldives.

Rijiju represented the Government of India at the swearing-in ceremony of Muizzu.