Thaindian News

New Delhi, Feb 7 (IANS) India said Tuesday it was “closely” monitoring the situation in the Maldives, where president Mohamed Nasheed quit after four years in office after overnight protests and a police mutiny, even as Indian diplomats in Male played mediators in resolving the “internal” crisis.

“We continue to closely monitor the situation in the Maldives,” an official spokesperson said, even as diplomatic sources said the Indian high commission in Male had helped in bringing the ruling and the opposition parties together to find a way out of the present impasse.

The external affairs ministry spokesperson said all Indians in the archipelago nation were safe following protests sparked by the arrest on Nasheed’s order of a judge over allegations of corruption. About 30,000 people of Indian origin live and work in Maldives, a majority in and around Male.

“We have noted the decision of president Mohamed Nasheed to resign in favour of Vice President Mohamed Waheed. This is an internal matter of the Maldives, to be resolved by the Maldivians,” the spokesperson said.

“We hope that all issues will be resolved in a peaceful and democratic manner.”

The official said India remained “committed to extending the fullest support and cooperation to the government in its endeavour to promote peace in the Maldives”.

Sources, meanwhile, said the crisis in Maldives was political in nature and that it was not a security issue.

“As long as the issue is resolved within the constitution and political domain, without any recourse to violence of any kind, there is no security issue there,” the sources said.

The archipelago is closest to India’s Lakshadweep islands in the Arabian Sea and the Eight Degree Channel between the Maldives and Lakshadweep is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

India regularly sends it naval warships and reconnaissance aircraft and helicopters to patrol the Maldives’ exclusive economic zone against pirates and poachers.

Sources also said that the Maldivian government under Nasheed had remained in touch with the Indian government over the last two months since some opposition parties raised the pitch against his government.

Some opposition parties had objected to a Pakistan-sponsored monument, gifted to the archipelago on the occasion of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit last year, for having motifs and inscriptions that hurt the religious sensibilities of the Sunni Muslim-majority Maldivian society.

Since then, the opposition parties have raised several issues against Nasheed’s government from economic policies to tourism, culminating in the tussle with the judiciary over the arrest of a judge, sources said.

During the two-month crisis, Fathimath Dhiyana Saeed of the Maldives had resigned as the SAARC secretary general in January in protest against the arrest of the Criminal Court Chief Judge Abdulla Mohamed.