China to enhance military ties with SL

     The Chinese government said its military was willing to make joint efforts with the Sri Lankan military to strengthen high-level contacts, deepen pragmatic cooperation and innovate exchange forms, so as to push forward the relations between the two militaries to a new high, the China Military Online reported.

Fang Fenghui, member of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Chief of General Staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) revealed this during a meeting with visiting Navy Commander JayanathColombage on April 26, in Beijing.

Fang said China and Sri Lanka shared a traditional friendship. In March 2013, Xi Jinping, President of the PRC, and Mahinda Rajapaksa, President of Sri Lanka, talked on the telephone and reached an important consensus on further developing China-Sri Lanka relations. In recent years, the mutual political trust has been constantly enhanced and the bilateral contacts in such fields as humanities as well as economy and trade had been increasingly closer.

Colombage said the Sri Lankan side was grateful to the Chinese side for its support and assistance in ending the Sri Lankan Civil War and rebuilding and developing Sri Lanka. He hoped the two sides would strengthen communication with each other and seek closer cooperation, so as to promote the relations between the two militaries, especially those between the two navies, to a new high.(Daily Mirror)