Soldiers returning from Maldives, India’s technical team suddenly reached Male, know the reason

The first team of Indian technical personnel has arrived in the island nation, just less than two weeks before the first batch of military personnel is expected to leave the Maldives by March 10. This team will operate aviation platforms. Maldives’ Defense Ministry said late night that the first team of Indian nationals has arrived and will take over helicopter operations in Addu, the country’s southernmost atoll. The statement said that as per the agreement of both the governments, the Indian military personnel deployed in Addu will leave by March 10.

The statement also said that a replacement helicopter would also arrive from India by Wednesday and the civilian team would begin training exercises to take over its operations. On February 2, both the countries had decided that India would withdraw its military personnel from Maldives between March and May. Randhir Jaiswal, the official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, said on 8 February that the current personnel would be replaced by competent Indian technical personnel. They will continue to operate two helicopters and one Dornier aircraft in the island nation. This was the main conclusion of the second meeting of the high-level core group between Indian and Maldivian officials in New Delhi on February 2.

A Maldives Foreign Ministry statement at the time said both sides agreed that the Indian government would replace military personnel in one of the three aviation platforms by March 10, 2024, and military personnel in the other two platforms by March 10. Will complete the replacement work. The Ministry of External Affairs in its statement did not give any timeline, but had said that both sides agreed on a set of mutually practical solutions to enable the continued operation of Indian aviation platforms that provide humanitarian and medical evacuation services to people .