Maldives\u2019s incoming president Mohamed Muiz said he has raised the demand for every single Indian military personnel to be removed from his country\u2019s soil ahead of his swearing-in ceremony next month. The victory of the pro-China opposition figure in recent national elections in Maldives had dealt a blow to India that has traditionally had close ties with the tourist country and has a military presence there to counter Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean region. \u201cWe don\u2019t want any foreign military boots on Maldivian soil… I promised this to the people of the Maldives and I will live up to my promise from day one,\u201d the new Maldivian president said. On the night of his election victory during celebrations, Mr Muiz told his supporters that he wouldn\u2019t stand for a foreign military staying in the Maldives against the will of its citizens. The pro-China leader said he met the Indian ambassador a few days after being elected as the archipelago nation\u2019s president and \u201ctold him very clearly that every single Indian military personnel here should be removed\u201d. This comes shortly after he said he will request the Indian government to remove their troops on \u201cday one\u201d after assuming charge as a matter of his top priorities for Maldives, in a clear sign of removing any military presence against China. \u201cI have actually met with the Indian high commissioner a few days ago during the transition period and during that meeting itself, I had mentioned that we need this to be our top most priority,\u201d Mr Muiz said. The election of the leader of the People\u2019s National Congress, viewed heavily as pro-China, is a serious diplomatic blow to India. Mr Muiz came to power in Maldives in September end, riding high on the wave of repelling alleged threats to Maldives\u2019s sovereignty by some Indian military personnel and continuing with his party\u2019s long-standing \u201cIndia out\u201d strategy. He will take charge from outgoing president Ibrahim Mohamed Solih who he accused of allowing India to have an unchecked presence in the country. Mr Solih is a staunch ally of India and had maintained a steady relationship with New Delhi during the course of his presidency. \u201cWe have been a very peaceful country for centuries. We never had any foreign troops on our soil. We do not have a big military set up and with any foreign troops on our soil, we don\u2019t feel secure,\u201d Mr Muiz earlier had told Al Jazeera. The president elect has not offered a clear tally of total Indian troops present on Maldivian soil. He claimed that he will have a pro-Maldives policy after he was asked if his term will see a tilt towards China. The number of Indian troops in the Maldives is unknown. Critics say the secrecy behind the agreement between the two nations\u2019 governments regarding the placement of military personnel and their role has led to suspicion and rumour. Known activities of the Indian military include operating two helicopters donated by India and assisting in the rescue of people stranded or faced with calamities at sea. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Maldives\u2019s incoming president Mohamed Muiz said he has raised the demand for every single Indian military personnel to be removed from his country\u2019s soil ahead…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10775,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}