By SHIHAR ANEEZ

ECONOMYNEXT –Cabinet will discuss how to handle foreign research vessels in future and the Foreign Ministry is in the process of drafting a cabinet paper for the policy, two government officials said.

Foreign research vessels are temporarily banned in Sri Lanka after India put heavy pressure on President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s government to stop Chinese research vessels calling into Sri Lankan waters, citing “security threats to the Indian Ocean”.

“The Foreign Ministry is drafting the cabinet paper on handling foreign research vessels,” a top government official, who is aware of the cabinet paper, told EconomyNext.

“Sri Lanka does not have the capacity and prior experience in handling research vessels and to have an idea about the exact research they are doing.”

Another official confirmed the proposed cabinet paper and said the authorities want to have a policy that will be “equally applied on research vessels from all the foreign nations”.

Chinese Embassy in Colombo this month raised strong protest against a move by Sri Lanka to allow a German research vessel for a port call amid the one year ban on foreign research vessels.

However, later, the Foreign Ministry said the German ship’s port call was for replenishment and not for research purposes.

Sri Lanka turned down a Beijing request for a research vessel arrival in February to do some research in Sri Lankan water. Later, China docked the ship in Maldives.

President Wickremesinghe government’s one-year ban came into effect in December last year.

The government has planned to train officials to handle research vessels during the one-year ban.

Until this week, the government failed to specifically state if requests for replenishment or crew change for foreign research vessels would be accommodated.

Two Chinese research ships were allowed to dock in Sri Lanka ports within 14 months.

Chinese research ship Shi Yan 6 arrived in Sri Lanka in October 2023 and docked in Colombo port, for what Beijing cited was for “geophysical scientific research” in collaboration with the island nation’s National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA).

In August 2022, Chinese navy vessel Yuan Wang 5 docked at Hambantota in southern Sri Lanka for replenishment.

Both drew strong Indian protests citing security concerns in the Indian Ocean.India uses the Colombo port as its main transshipment hub and accounts for around 70 percent of the total transshipment volume of the port.