Minister Peiris meets the new External Affairs Minister of India

Minister of External Affairs G. L. Peiris who is in New Delhi for the 12^th Meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) that is currently chaired by India, met the Minister of External Affairs of India, Salman Khurshid, on 2 November. This was the first meeting between the two ministers since Minister Khurshid’s appointment as the External Affairs Minister of India.

The ministers used the opportunity to discuss briefly, key issues of importance to the two countries and agreed that the 8^th Session of the India-Sri Lanka Joint Commission chaired by the Ministers of External Affairs would be convened in New Delhi in January 2013. The Joint Commission between the two countries is a structured mechanism that discusses all areas of bilateral relevance for cooperation between India and Sri Lanka including trade, services and investment, development cooperation, science and technology, and culture and education. The last meeting of the Joint Commission was held in Colombo in November 2010.