SPEECH BY SHRI K.R.NARAYANAN, PRESIDENT OF INDIA, AT THE BANQUET IN HONOUR OF MR. MAUMOON ABDUL GAYOOM, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF MALDIVES
NEW DELHI, AUGUST 21, 2000
Your
Excellency President Gayoom,
Madame
Nasreena Gayoom,Distinguished
guests from the Maldives,Ladies
and Gentlemen,
It
gives me great pleasure to welcome you to India. You are a friend of
India of long standing who have personally steered the course of India-Maldives
relations to their present exemplary level. India is going through great
social and technological changes and major economic reforms. We are
happy to share these experiences with our friends in order to enhance
our understanding of each other. We wish Your Excellency, Madame Gayoom
and the members of your delegation a pleasant and rewarding stay in
our country. Excellency,
we in India felicitate you on your long and distinguished service to
the people of Maldives. Your re-election in 1998 to a fifth term in
office under the terms of a new and carefully crafted Constitution bears
testimony to the success of your leadership.
The Maldives today enjoys
a high human development index and the highest per capita income in
our region. Your Excellency’s personal vision and the pragmatic policies
followed by your government have provided the framework for the rapid
socio-economic development of your nation. The stability enjoyed by
the Maldives has enabled your people to adapt to change and to the forces
of modernisation. The enthusiasm with which Maldivian voters participated
in the People’s Majlis elections last November testifies to the value
that your people attach to the process of democracy. Excellency,
we have watched with keen interest the efforts of your Government to
meet the changing needs and aspirations of your people.
We understand
your sustained efforts to blend the abiding values of the past with
the challenges of the present. While doing so, you have also maintained
the national and cultural identity of the Maldives. We too are seeking
to sustain such an equilibrium and have something to learn from your
experience, particularly for the development of our island territories. Excellency,
your presence here is an affirmation of the deep bonds of friendship,
goodwill and mutual respect that our two countries share. For us the
Maldives is the closest neighbour, a strategic jewel set in the Indian
Ocean. We enjoy a relationship free of tensions.
To be a partner in
Maldives’ socio-economic development has been our privilege. We are
glad that projects such as the Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital and the
Maldives Institute of Technical Education have made a tangible contribution
to the health care and vocational training facilities available to your
people. In the field of higher education, a diversified technical assistance
programme covering general and professional degree courses in India
is already in place. We are to start implementing agreements to provide
Maldivian youth with greater access to quality higher education in India,
including distance education through the Indira Gandhi National Open
University.
Excellency, we share the emphasis that you place on Human
Resource Development. You can count on our continued readiness to share
our facilities in these areas, including access to our institutions
of higher learning. Our
co-operation in the fields of security and defence has also grown steadily.
We are now initiating proposals to deal with fresh challenges such as
the threat posed by drug trafficking and by marine pollution. Excellency,
India has always worked to build a relationship of peace, friendship
and co-operation with all its neighbours. At the same time we are fully
conscious of the serious threat that terrorism poses to civilized societies
and to international peace and security. We have been a victim of state-sponsored
cross-border terrorism for over a decade.
With our friendly neighbours,
we share perceptions on the common threat from terrorism with its linkages
to illicit trade in drugs, arms and money laundering. We hope that we
can work together with the Maldives and other friendly countries, for
an early adoption of a comprehensive international convention on terrorism. Excellency,
India and the Maldives are linked by the profound bonds of geography,
history and culture. People-to-people contacts are growing. We share
our resources and ideas in a spirit of goodwill. We in India are committed
to a relationship of abiding friendship with the Maldives, founded on
mutual trust and support which I believe is a model for other countries
I
am hopeful, Excellency, that your current visit will give a new impetus
to the relation between India and Maldives and impart even more substance
and momentum to our relations so as to promote progress and harmony
in our region.
Thank you
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