After years of isolation, int. community ready to welcome Maldives: FM Shahid

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdulla Shahid has stated that the international community is ready to welcome the Maldives with “genuine warmth” after five years of isolationism.

Following his return to Maldives after his trip to several countries including in the middle east, FM Shahid took to twitter, writing that all countries are ready to assist the Maldives in realizing President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih’s manifesto to the Maldivian people.

During his trips to Abu Dhabi, Washington D.C, New York and London he had held fruitful discussions at meetings with many officials of the respective governments of each country.

The biggest highlight of FM Shahid’s trip remains his meeting with Patricia Scotland, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth in order to discuss accelerating the process of Maldives rejoining the Commonwealth association.

Maldives became a member of the Commonwealth in 1982. However, it left in October 2016 following then-President Abdulla Yameen’s refusal to follow the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group’s order to return to democracy after it threatened to suspend the Maldives following the Yameen administration’s gross violation of rights of his political rivals.