By The Pulseline News Desk
The US Embassy in Colombo alerted Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry to the presence of several Iranian vessels operating off the country’s coast, prompting Sri Lankan authorities to step up monitoring of the vessels, Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath has said.
Herath has disclosed the communication at the post-Cabinet media briefing, saying the US Embassy had contacted the Foreign Ministry to ask whether Sri Lankan authorities were aware of the Iranian vessels and whether they were being monitored.
“The U.S. Embassy in Colombo informed the Foreign Ministry that there were several Iranian vessels and asked whether we were aware of them and whether they were being monitored,” Herath has said.
The Foreign Minister has said the information was subsequently shared with the Defence and Ports ministries, which are now monitoring the vessels.
The disclosure is significant as it confirms that Washington had raised the presence of the Iranian vessels directly with Colombo amid heightened scrutiny of Iranian-linked shipping and US restrictions affecting vessels associated with Iran.
Herath, however, has rejected reports that the vessels had entered Sri Lanka’s territorial waters.
He has said authorities had identified 47 vessels in the vicinity of Sri Lanka, including some Iranian vessels, but has maintained that they were operating outside the country’s 12-nautical-mile territorial sea and in international waters.
“There are 47 vessels that have been identified in the vicinity. They are not only Iranian vessels. Some belong to Iran, but they are beyond Sri Lanka’s territorial waters and are in international waters,” he has said.
The Minister has added that vessels from countries including Thailand and Malaysia were also operating in the area, arguing that the presence of commercial vessels in international waters was not unusual.
He has stressed that Sri Lanka had neither received requests from the vessels to enter its territorial waters nor granted permission for them to do so.
The Government’s response followed reports that several Iranian-flagged vessels had been positioned off Sri Lanka near the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
Questions were also raised at the briefing over the precise location of the vessels in recent days. Journalists have said some had reportedly been detected between 11.4 and 11.6 nautical miles from the Sri Lankan coast last week — within the country’s 12-nautical-mile territorial sea — before moving farther offshore to around 24 nautical miles.
Herath has nevertheless maintained that Sri Lankan authorities’ observations showed that the vessels had not entered the country’s territorial waters.
The Sri Lanka Navy has similarly said the vessels were in the vicinity of Sri Lanka’s EEZ but outside its sovereign territorial waters.
The episode places the Government in a delicate position as it seeks to maintain relations with both the US and Iran while ensuring that Sri Lanka’s waters are not used in ways that could expose the country to diplomatic or geopolitical complications.
The fact that the US Embassy had raised the matter directly with the Foreign Ministry also highlights Washington’s interest in the movements of Iranian-linked vessels in the waters around Sri Lanka.
For Colombo, the immediate response has been to monitor the vessels while maintaining that they remain outside Sri Lanka’s sovereign territorial waters.
Herath has said there had been no request from the vessels to enter Sri Lankan waters and no permission had been issued for such entry.
Leave a comment