Choppers gifted by India still in Maldives

While the deadline given to India to take back the helicopters it had gifted the Maldives has passed, reports indicate that both parties are trying to work out a deal to keep them here until December.

The government of Maldives had told India to take back the helicopters before the end of June. However, Indian news outlet 'Times of India' reported that both choppers are still in Maldives as they are 'working out a compromise formula' to allow them to remain in the archipelago nation until December.

Citing a government source, Times of India said that the two helicopters, along with the 48 personnel from the Navy and Coast Guard to fly and maintain them 'are still in the Maldives' and that 'negotiations are underway between the two governments for renewal of visas of the Indian personnel'.

Maldives first asked India to take back one of the gifted Dhruv Advance Light Helicopter (ALH) in April, after two years of use. Then in June, it asked India to take back the second one as well, giving them until end of June to do so.

India had described Maldives’ move as ‘duplicitous,’ highlighting that ‘the talk about the need for a Dornier aircraft was nothing but a fig leaf to candy-coat [Maldives’] decision’.

Times of India had then reported that India feels that Maldives’ “complete opacity and lack of sincerity” has “seriously undermined the traditional and consultation-based relationship built over the past five decades”.

The Maldives’ decision came on the heels of Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s three-day visit to the country in April, where both parties discussed the possibility of joint patrolling Maldives’ exclusive economic zone, which India had described as a 'redline'.

Relations between India and Maldives have been especially sour since it called on the island nation to implement a court order to release nine unfairly detained prisoners, which President Yameen had described as an attempted “judicial coup”.

India continued the call to implement the “ruling issued by the Supreme Court’s full bench” in a message released by its External Affairs Ministry, even after the lift of the state of emergency was lifted.

In a statement released on February 22, the Maldivian government snapped at India, saying that public statements “that ignore facts and ground realities are not helpful".