Context: India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives have agreed to work on “four pillars” of security cooperation, in a recent virtual meeting of top security officials of the three countries.

• The meeting which was held under the Colombo Security Conclave was attended by India, Maldives and Sri Lanka. 
• And countries including Bangladesh, Seychelles and Mauritius also participate in the role of observers.
• Marked the revival of NSA-level trilateral talks on maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region after a gap of six years.

Key highlights

• The aim of the Meeting was to establish a maritime security mechanism for Indian Ocean Region (IOR) including the Bay of Bengal amid China’s growing presence in the area.
• With the six countries attending the meeting, the focus areas were expanded and now it covers weapons and human trafficking, countering terrorism and violent extremism, protection of maritime environment, capacity building, transnational crimes including narcotics, and Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR), etc.
• More cooperation through joint exercises of the navies and coast guards to further strengthen maritime safety and security in IOR.
• Later this year, the three observer countries have been invited to be full members at the next NSA level meeting. This meeting will take place in Maldives.

Four pillars of co-operation
The recent meeting identified “four pillars” of cooperation in

• Marine Safety and Security
• Terrorism and Radicalization
• Trafficking and Organized Crime
• Cybersecurity

Other relevant points

• Colombo Security Conclave: The ‘Colombo Security Conclave’ among the three neighboring countries seeks to “further promote” maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region.
• It was established in November 2020 at the NSA-level meeting of India, Sri Lanka, and the Maldives to forge closer cooperation on maritime and security matters among the three Indian Ocean countries.
• The initiative, related to military and security collaboration, assumes significance in the region, in the wake of the current geostrategic dynamic that India shares with Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
• Earlier this year, India aired security concerns over China being awarded development projects on an island off Sri Lanka’s northern province, close to India’s southern border.
• Maldives: Maldives’s engagement with members of the ‘Quad’, has been growing over the last year, especially in the area of defence cooperation. The Ibrahim Mohamed Solih government signed a ‘Framework for a Defence and Security Relationship’ agreement with the United States in 2020, an initiative that India welcomed.

Road Ahead

• Drawing a clear boundary of the subregion will continue to remain a challenge as cooperation will not always be driven by the proximity factor but also by the nature of the issue itself.