By Ifham Nizam

In an exclusive interview with The Island, Ifham Nizam speaks with Professor Gothamie Weerakoon—Senior Curator and leading researcher on lichens and slime moulds at the Natural History Museum—who offers a candid, evidence-driven critique of corporate sustainability, global biodiversity governance, and the realities facing countries like Sri Lanka.

With over 450,000 specimens under her care and more than 100 new lichen species described through fieldwork across South and Southeast Asia, Prof. Weerakoon brings a rare combination of deep scientific expertise and frontline ecological observation.

Her message is clear: biodiversity loss is accelerating, and much of what is presented as “progress” remains largely unproven.

Excepts of the full interview

Q: The Natural History Museum speaks of turning science into action—what evidence is there that businesses are actually changing behaviour rather than rebranding sustainability narratives?

A:There is emerging evidence of change, but when biodiversity is the focus, the gap between action and narrative becomes much more visible.

Some companies are moving beyond broad commitments by measuring their impacts on ecosystems, setting targets to halt biodiversity loss, and reporting through frameworks like TNFD (Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures). But these are still the exceptions.

Real change becomes evident when businesses transform supply chains—eliminating deforestation-linked commodities, adopting regenerative agriculture, and working with local communities to restore ecosystems. Investment in habitat restoration and science-led, location-specific action also signals progress.

Turning science into action: Prof. Gothamie Weerakoon calls out Biodiversity “Narratives”

However, without clear baselines, measurable outcomes, and long-term commitment, biodiversity claims risk remaining abstract. At present, biodiversity is still more visible in corporate language than in verified outcomes.

Q: Are multinational corporations genuinely reducing their biodiversity footprint, or simply shifting environmental costs to developing countries like Sri Lanka?

A: The reality is mixed, but there is strong evidence that impacts are often being shifted rather than reduced.

Consumption in wealthier economies continues to drive habitat loss in biodiversity-rich regions. In countries like Sri Lanka, export-driven sectors, such as agriculture and rubber, contribute to deforestation and habitat fragmentation.

Lichens grow on both natural and artificial surfaces

Companies may improve their environmental performance, domestically, while outsourcing ecological damage to regions with weaker regulation. So while awareness is increasing, most corporations are not yet reducing their global biodiversity footprint.

Q:How do you distinguish between credible biodiversity action and corporate greenwashing in real terms?

A:Credible action is science-based, measurable, and location-specific.

Companies must establish baselines, quantify their ecological impacts, and demonstrate real outcomes—such as reduced deforestation or restored habitats—verified independently.

Greenwashing, on the other hand, relies on vague terms like “nature-positive” without evidence. It often highlights small projects while ignoring major impacts, or depends on offsets instead of reducing harm.

Red Christmas lichens are not a species found in Arctic habitats. Instead, it is characteristic of tropical and subtropical regions, indeed found in the Sinharaja Forest Reserve, particularly in the Morningside and Pitadeniya areas

The key test is simple: can a company prove that biodiversity loss linked to its operations is declining in specific places over time? If not, it is likely narrative rather than action.

Q:Many biodiversity commitments remain voluntary—should there be legally binding global standards for corporate accountability?

A:Yes, there is a strong case for binding standards.

Voluntary commitments lead to uneven progress and make it difficult to separate genuine action from superficial claims. Legal frameworks could ensure consistent reporting, accountability, and minimum standards.

However, biodiversity is highly local. Any global system must allow for flexibility and support developing countries rather than imposing rigid rules.

Q:What sectors are currently causing the most irreversible biodiversity damage, and why are they still operating with limited restrictions?

A:The most damaging sectors include agriculture, forestry, mining, and fossil fuel extraction.

Agriculture—especially large-scale monocultures—drives deforestation and habitat loss. Mining and fossil fuels cause long-term ecological disruption, while marine ecosystems suffer from overfishing.

These sectors persist with limited restrictions because they are economically powerful, biodiversity loss is harder to quantify than carbon emissions, and global supply chains allow impacts to be outsourced. Regulation also remains fragmented and weakly enforced.

Q:In countries like Sri Lanka, development projects often override environmental concerns—how can science-based tools realistically influence political decision-making?

A:Science-based tools can make biodiversity loss visible and measurable.

Environmental impact assessments, ecological mapping, and predictive models allow policymakers to understand trade-offs clearly. When ecological risks are quantified, they become harder to ignore.

The key is integrating these tools into planning systems so environmental considerations are not optional, but a core part of decision-making.

Q:Can biodiversity conservation truly coexist with large-scale infrastructure and energy projects?

A:Yes—but only if biodiversity is considered from the beginning.

Projects must be designed using science-based planning, avoiding sensitive ecosystems and incorporating mitigation strategies like wildlife corridors and habitat restoration.

Conservation and development are not inherently incompatible, but poor planning creates conflict.

Q:Are global biodiversity frameworks failing to address ground realities in developing economies?

They often fall short in implementation.

A:Global frameworks provide guidance, but must be adapted to local conditions. Developing countries face capacity constraints and competing priorities.

Success depends on building local scientific capacity, aligning goals with economic realities, and ensuring flexibility in how targets are applied.

Q:What role should governments play when businesses resist biodiversity regulations citing economic pressures?

A:Governments must act as regulators and enforcers.

They should establish clear legal standards, backed by monitoring and penalties. At the same time, incentives—such as green finance and technical support—can help businesses transition.

Economic arguments should not override ecological realities, especially when long-term costs of biodiversity loss are considered.

Q:Are financial institutions doing enough to penalise environmentally destructive investments?

A:Not yet. While awareness of biodiversity risk is increasing, short-term profits still dominate decision-making. ESG frameworks exist, but enforcement is weak.

Professor Gothamie Weerakoon

Stronger systems are needed—binding criteria, independent audits, and better integration of ecological risk into financial decisions.

Q:How can local communities be given real decision-making power rather than token consultation?

A:Communities must be recognised as partners, not stakeholders.

Legal rights, participatory planning, and co-management systems are essential. Traditional knowledge should be integrated with scientific data.

Without real authority, consultation becomes symbolic rather than meaningful.

Q:What immediate, science-backed interventions can be implemented in Sri Lanka?

A:Practical steps include restoring mangroves, creating wildlife corridors, and community-led reforestation.

Using GIS mapping and monitoring systems can identify high-risk areas, while sustainable livelihood programmes reduce pressure on ecosystems.

These interventions must be evidence-based and locally adapted.

Q:How can policymakers protect biodiversity-rich regions from short-term exploitation?

A:Through zoning laws, protected areas, and mandatory environmental assessments.

Valuing ecosystem services in economic planning is also critical. When biodiversity is treated as an economic asset, it becomes harder to ignore.

Q:What mechanisms exist to hold corporations accountable when biodiversity damage crosses borders?

A:International agreements, supply chain regulations, and reporting frameworks like TNFD play a role.

Financial institutions, legal systems, and civil society also contribute to accountability. But enforcement across borders remains a major challenge.

Q:Is there sufficient transparency in corporate biodiversity reporting?

A:No—current systems are inconsistent and largely voluntary.

Many companies fail to quantify their impacts, and independent verification is limited. Without standardised metrics and audits, transparency remains inadequate.

Q:How can biodiversity be integrated into national economic planning without slowing growth?

A:By recognising that biodiversity supports economic resilience.

Nature-based solutions—such as mangrove restoration or sustainable agriculture—deliver both ecological and economic benefits.

Strategic planning can align conservation with development rather than treating them as opposing goals.

Q:What are the long-term economic risks of biodiversity loss in South Asia?

A: They are severe. Declining pollination, soil degradation, and fisheries collapse threaten food security. Loss of forests and wetlands increases disaster risks.

Ultimately, biodiversity loss undermines economic stability and increases vulnerability to climate shocks.

Q:How can science communication better influence public opinion and policy?

A: By making data accessible and relevant.

Visual tools, storytelling, and collaboration with media can translate complex science into actionable insights. Public engagement is essential for policy change.

Q:Are current conservation models too dependent on international funding?

A:Yes, and that creates vulnerability.

Long-term sustainability requires diversified funding—government support, private investment, and community-based initiatives.

Local ownership is key to lasting impact.

Q:Ultimately, who should bear the greatest responsibility for reversing biodiversity loss?

A:Responsibility is shared—but governments hold the greatest leverage.

They set the rules, enforce regulations, and shape economic systems. Corporations and consumers also play critical roles, but without strong governance, progress will remain limited.

Prof. Weerakoon’s assessment is both measured and uncompromising: biodiversity loss is no longer a distant ecological issue—it is an economic, political, and social crisis.

Aligned with the mission of the Natural History Museum, her message is clear: the future of conservation depends not on promises, but on verifiable, science-based action grounded in real ecosystems—not narratives.

An Independent Freelance Correspondent

As the sun sets over the Indian Ocean, the tranquil beauty of Sri Lanka feels many a world away from the smoke, thunder, misery and deaths in the Middle East, taking place in the midst of a senseless war. Yet for all that, in our interconnected world, a butterfly might flit its wings in the Gulf, and a storm might eventually break over our own little paradise island, as a strange reversal of the status quo. However, the escalating conflict in the Middle East is no longer just a distant headline for Sri Lankans; it is an ominous cloud gathering that threatens the very backbone of our much-bandied social contract, our healthcare system.

While we often view war through the lens of geopolitics or rising oil prices, the “Ground Zero” of its impact in Sri Lanka may well be the hospital ward, the local dispensary, and the dinner tables of our most vulnerable citizens, just as much as it would impact on the healthcare professionals who are responsible for maintaining a well-oiled machine; the pun being intentional.

The Fuel Paradox: When Mobility Becomes a Luxury

Our health service runs on wheels as much as it does on training and wisdom. The entire system has to be supported by energy. The Middle East remains the lifeblood of our energy supply, and any disruption to the Strait of Hormuz would send immediate shockwaves to our fuel pumps. Lack of fuel, as well as skyrocketing prices of oil, would have a cascading detrimental effect on our health service.

For the average citizen, a spike in fuel prices is not just a “transport issue” but a miserable calamity that could become a noteworthy barrier to life-saving healthcare. When bus fares double and three-wheeler charges skyrocket, a mother in a rural village may think twice and even hesitate to take her feverish child to the nearest Base Hospital. In the calculus of poverty, the cost of the journey often outweighs the urgency of the ailment, until and most unfortunately, it sadly and tragically becomes too late.

Furthermore, our healthcare workers, the doctors, nurses, public health midwives, clerks, orderlies, and other grades of minor staff, are certainly not immune to the impacts of the fuel crisis. Unlike many top-tier officials of the rest of the public service, most medical staff rely on their own vehicles or public transport to reach their posts. If fuel becomes a rationed luxury, we risk a kind of inevitable “silent strike” where the healers simply cannot afford to commute to the hallowed places of healing. The other grades of staff mentioned are certainly no less important to run the machine, and they will also be at the receiving end of the fuel crisis and transport problems.

A Bitter Pill: The Private Sector Squeeze

While the state provides free healthcare, the private sector has long acted as a vital pressure valve for the national system. However, the conflict is rapidly tightening the screws here as well.

 =The Price of Healing: Most of our medicines and vaccines are imported. With global shipping routes disrupted and “war risk” insurance premiums surging, the landed cost of a simple strip of a commonly used medicine or a vital course of antibiotics to clear a lung infection would climb disproportionately.

 =The “In-Patient” Inflation: Private hospitals are energy-intensive hubs. From the electricity that powers life-support machines to the diesel that runs emergency generators, rising costs will most unfortunately have to be passed directly to the patient.

 =Consultation Charges: As overheads, maintenance costs, staff salaries, and medical supplies spiral, even the renowned Private Hospitals, as well as even the most dedicated private practitioners, would find themselves forced to increase fees.

When the private sector becomes unaffordable, those patients migrate back to the already overstretched state hospitals, creating a “domino effect” of long queues and exhausted resources.

The Empty Plate: Nutrition as the First Line of Defence will be in danger

Perhaps, the most insidious impact of the Middle Eastern crisis is the one that happens at the grocery store leading to great difficulties in getting food into the table. Sri Lanka relies heavily on remittances from our workers in the Gulf and the robust export of our “black gold”- Ceylon Tea. The war has stalled tea exports to major markets like Iran and Iraq, costing the industry millions every week. Simultaneously, if our workers in the Middle East face displacement, the flow of foreign exchange into our country, which would benefit even the villagers, might just dry up.

When a family’s income drops, the first thing to be sacrificed is often the “quality” and even the quantity of the food that comes onto the table. We might see a return to starch-heavy, protein-poor diets. For a pregnant mother, this means anaemia and untold risks to the yet-to-be-born baby. For a growing young child, it means stunting and weakened immunity. For the elderly, it will mean increasing the frailty of old age. We are essentially “importing” a future health crisis of malnutrition that no amount of free medicine can easily fix.

The Supply Chain Shadow

Modern medicine is a “just-in-time” industry. Many of our specialised vaccines and a variegated plethora of treatments require a “cold chain” – a continuous refrigerated journey. With major Gulf air hubs facing disruptions, these temperature-sensitive medicines must be rerouted. This adds days to the journey and increases the risk of “spoilage.” A vaccine that loses its potency due to a shipping delay is not just a financial loss; it is a lost shield for a child and even, older and elderly people.

Sadly, just like the fuel situation, there have not been any worthwhile efforts to “stockpile” at least some of the essential medicines. Of course, unlike just storing fuel to stockpile, medicines have their own problems with shelf-life and expiry dates. It is indeed a vexing problem that might cause a major, tricky situation at some time in the future. The government is planning to issue medicines for two months from the clinics etc. One only hopes that the currently available stock could be used effectively without that initiative leading to a desperate shortage of essential drugs.

Navigating the Storm: Some Ways to Mitigate the Crisis

This author has brought to light some of the issues that we may see in the future. However, it is not an exhaustive or complete list of all possible consequences. There could be quite a few more. While the situation is grave at present, it is perhaps not unmanageable. To protect the vitality of our healthcare, we must adopt a “War Footing” of preparedness:

1. Fuel Priority for Healthcare: The government must establish a “Green Lane” for healthcare personnel and emergency vehicles, ensuring that they have subsidised or prioritised access to fuel to prevent service interruptions. This has to include the private healthcare personnel as well.

2. Strategic Buffer Stocks: We must move away from “just-in-time” imports and build a minimum 6-month buffer stock of essential medicines and vaccines. We need to utilise regional cooperation with neighbours like India to diversify supply routes.

3. Strengthening Primary Care: By investing in local dispensaries and public health midwives, we can treat ailments before they require expensive hospital stays, as well as extended forms of treatment, reducing the transport burden on patients.

4. Nutritional Safety Nets: Expanding school meal programmes and providing fortified food supplements to pregnant mothers can act as a firewall against the malnutrition that is likely to be caused by economic shocks.

5. Digital Health Integration: Expanding “telemedicine” can allow specialists to consult with rural patients remotely, saving both the doctor and the patient the high cost of travel.

A Call for Preparedness, but not a Harbinger of Panic

It is ever so easy to read these points and see a looming, tremendously gloomy fog that could envelop our revered Motherland in the not-too-distant future. However, from a clearer perspective, the purpose of this analysis is not for the writer to act as a prophet of doom, but for this enterprise to serve as a wake-up call for proactive management and to take all necessary steps, well in time, to avoid a catastrophe.

Our health service is the crown jewel of our nation. It has been built on the Herculean effort of generations who believed that health is definitely a right, and certainly not a privilege. To protect it, we must look beyond our borders and understand that the proverb “a stitch in time saves nine” is what we need now. We must strengthen our social safety nets before the ripples of the Middle Eastern war become a tidal wave that hits our shores. We need to act purposefully now, to be able to steadfastly cushion whatever blows that might come our way in the future.

This is not a forecast of a disaster that is one-hundred per cent certain to occur. In stark contrast, it is meant to be a sober and sombre analysis of possible ramifications that we must prepare for today, to save the lives of our people and look after their health tomorrow.

Dr B. J. C. Perera
MBBS(Cey), DCH(Cey), DCH(Eng), MD(Paediatrics), MRCP(UK), FRCP(Edin),
FRCP(Lond), FRCPCH(UK), FSLCPaed, FCCP, Hony. FRCPCH(UK), Hony. FCGP(SL)
Specialist Consultant Paediatrician and Honorary Senior Fellow, Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The US Navy’s sinking of an Iranian frigate IRIS Dena just off Sri Lanka’s southern coast has done more than disturb the waters of the Indian Ocean. It has jolted a small island nation into the gravitational pull of a geopolitical drama that is no longer confined to Tehran’s crumbling political architecture. Sri Lanka did not seek this moment. Yet history has a habit of choosing its bystanders, and the detonation beneath the waves has now placed Colombo at the fault line of Iran’s post regime turmoil. What had been a fractured and uncertain transition has suddenly acquired a maritime focal point, one that carries the potential for escalation, misjudgment, and the opportunistic meddling of regional powers eager to shape the emerging order.

In response, Sri Lanka has moved with a discipline that belies its size. Naval vessels were dispatched within hours to secure the wreck site. A formal inquiry was announced even before public speculation could harden into rumor. Senior officials established discreet channels with the International Maritime Organization to ensure that the investigation proceeds within an internationally recognized framework. Throughout these actions, the government has maintained a posture of strict neutrality. Yet the neutrality itself is a message. It signals that Sri Lanka intends to steady the situation without becoming entangled in the rivalries now radiating outward from Iran’s internal collapse.

For weeks, analysts have warned that Iran’s unfolding transition was approaching a dangerous tipping point. That warning has now come to pass. The crisis is no longer political alone. It is no longer a matter of rival factions disputing legitimacy in distant capitals. It has become a security crisis with consequences that wash onto the shores of states that never imagined they would be pulled into the vortex.

It is into this unpredictable moment that I have advanced the proposal known as the Colombo Accord. It is presented not as a government blueprint, but as a scholarly intervention grounded in the mechanics of negotiated transitions and the realities of regional security. The Accord outlines a multi-phase framework for structured dialogue among Iran’s four principal factions and relevant international stakeholders. In any week, the initiative would have been timely. In this week, with Sri Lanka thrust into the story by the accident of geography and the violence of the sea, its logic has become unavoidable. The stakes have risen. So has the urgency.

A Maritime Tragedy Highlights a Political Vacuum

The sinking of the Iranian frigate, still the subject of an evolving investigation, has unleashed a torrent of speculation that mirrors the broader uncertainty consuming Iran’s post regime landscape. Tehran’s provisional authorities have already gestured toward sabotage. Within Iran’s rival factions, whispers circulate that the incident may be a settling of scores disguised as misfortune. Regional analysts, quick to see the hidden hand of intelligence services, suggest the possibility of covert action by states with long standing grievances against Tehran. No version of events has been substantiated, yet each interpretation reveals the same unsettling truth. A nation struggling to define its political future is now projecting its instability outward, and the tremor has been felt far beyond its territorial waters.

In the aftermath, Iran’s political factions have turned upon one another with renewed ferocity. The sinking has become a canvas on which competing narratives of legitimacy are being hastily painted, each faction scrambling to depict itself as the victim of a conspiracy and its rivals as the likely authors of national humiliation. As Tehran’s internal quarrels intensify, regional powers have begun repositioning their naval assets nearer to the Indian Ocean’s key transit routes. The maritime movements speak more loudly than the official communiqués. They betray a quiet preparation for whatever comes next, whether escalation, opportunity, or a larger realignment triggered by the vacuum in Iran.

For Sri Lanka, the event has created a delicate and unfamiliar burden. The country now finds itself attempting to preserve its neutrality while managing the political sensitivities of hosting the wreckage of a foreign military vessel barely beyond its shoreline. Every statement must be calibrated, every operational decision measured. An island that has long viewed geopolitical turbulence as something observed from afar must now contend with the fact that great power politics can arrive not by choice or invitation, but as debris drifting toward its beaches.

The tragedy at sea has made unmistakably clear what distant observers sometimes forget. Geography offers no immunity when instability expands beyond its point of origin. In a world where maritime space is both the arena of commerce and the stage of strategic rivalry, even a nation seemingly far from the epicenter of conflict can find itself drawn into its orbit.

Why Colombo Now Matters More Than Ever

My proposal for the Colombo Accord predates the sinking of the Iranian frigate, yet the incident has given the framework a sharper edge and a sense of immediacy that no academic theorizing could have supplied. Iran’s transition has long been fractured among four principal blocs. Monarchists cling to the memory of a political order that once anchored Iran in a very different world. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (a coalition of Iranian dissident groups) and the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK)—an exiled Iranian opposition group advocating for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic to establish a secular, democratic state—operate with a disciplined organizational machinery that inspires both loyalty and unease. The technocrats and remnants of the Artesh, the conventional Islamic Republic of Iran Army, represent the continuity of a state apparatus that refuses to vanish with the fall of its governing ideology. The democratic coalitions, particularly those rooted in Iran’s ethnic peripheries, carry their own visions of a future that balances autonomy with nationhood. Their rivalry has always posed a significant risk to Iran’s internal stability, but until now it remained largely contained within the fractured political landscape of a country struggling to reinvent itself.

The loss of the frigate near Sri Lanka’s waters has altered the nature of the crisis. What had been an internal contest for legitimacy has tipped outward. It has become transnational, touching actors and geographies that never sought to be involved. The sinking is not merely a maritime accident. It is an early signal that Iran’s instability possesses a centrifugal force capable of drawing in distant states through the mechanisms of happenstance, miscalculation, or opportunistic interference. When a nation in turmoil radiates uncertainty into the sea lanes of the Indo Pacific, it is no longer possible to treat its troubles as an isolated matter.

The Colombo Accord argues that Sri Lanka, or any similarly neutral Indo Pacific venue, provides both psychological distance and geopolitical safety essential for meaningful dialogue. This distance is not a luxury. It is a structural requirement for factions that have spent decades regarding one another as existential threats. Colombo’s neutrality was once a diplomatic asset, useful but not indispensable. After the frigate incident, that neutrality has acquired a different kind of weight. It has become a stabilizing counterpoint to the suspicion that now permeates the region. When the waters grow crowded with vessels watching one another, calculating advantages, and anticipating the next provocation, a neutral shoreline becomes more than a symbolic refuge. It becomes a strategic terrain upon which the first steps toward de-escalation can plausibly be taken.

Sri Lanka did not ask for this role, yet circumstances have placed the island in a position where neutrality is no longer simply a posture. It is a form of strategic relevance. The calm that Colombo projects in the face of a foreign frigate resting near its coast demonstrates a kind of quiet capability that the region increasingly needs. The Accord seeks to build upon this moment, not to entangle Sri Lanka in the ambitions of others, but to offer a platform on which Iran’s fractured actors might finally find a way out of their zero sum contest.

A Scholar’s Framework for a Global Crisis

The Colombo Accord remains, at its core, an intellectual construct rather than an instrument of statecraft. It was conceived not in the corridors of a foreign ministry, but in the analytical space where theory, history, and strategic necessity intersect. Yet the fact that it is an academic design does not diminish its relevance. On the contrary, scholarly frameworks often precede political action, especially when governments find themselves reacting to crises they did not anticipate and do not fully understand. The Accord offers a disciplined structure for a transition that has so far unfolded as a series of disconnected improvisations by actors who distrust one another far more than they fear the consequences of inaction.

The framework proceeds in three distinct movements that reflect the logic of negotiated transitions. The first is a period of stabilisation talks that addresses the most immediate sources of danger. These include the custodial control of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, the architecture of sanctions relief, and the assurance of safe navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. The frigate incident has now broadened this agenda. Maritime stability is no longer separable from the wider Indo Pacific environment, and any discussion of navigational security must take into account the possibility that Iran’s turmoil can spill outward into seas once considered peripheral to its internal struggles.

The second movement concerns the formation of a Transitional National Council. This requires closed negotiations in which the factions confront the difficult questions of representation, authority, and temporal limits. It demands that monarchists, technocrats, armed political organizations, and democratic regional coalitions attempt to imagine a shared political future after decades of mutual suspicion. A council of this nature cannot be imposed from outside. It must be assembled by the factions themselves yet guided within a structured environment that prevents the stronger parties from overwhelming the weaker and the weaker from derailing the process through fear of exclusion.

The third movement culminates in the drafting of two foundational texts. A Stabilisation Communiqué formalizes the immediate agreements necessary to prevent a descent into chaos. A Transitional National Council Framework sets the rules of the interim governance period and outlines the path toward elections or constitutional ratification. These documents, once completed, would not require Sri Lanka to act as guarantor. They would instead be presented to the United Nations by states willing to sponsor a viable path forward without seeking to dominate its content.

The sinking of the frigate does not alter the design of these phases. What it alters is the timeline. Crises at sea have a way of compressing political space. Maritime insecurity forces actors to confront the possibility that the next miscalculation could ignite a conflict far larger than anyone intends. The Colombo Accord, once a conceptual blueprint, now functions as an urgent scaffolding for de-escalation. It offers a disciplined alternative to the drift that currently characterizes the regional response. The longer the vacuum persists, the more likely it becomes that events will unfold according to the logic of accident rather than the logic of strategy. The Accord exists to prevent that outcome.

Sri Lanka’s Dilemma: Neutrality in the Eye of a Storm

Colombo’s response in the days since the sinking has been marked by a quiet discipline that reflects both prudence and an awareness of the moment’s gravity. Naval patrols have been extended across the affected waters in an effort to ensure that no foreign actor exploits the wreck or attempts to manipulate the scene for strategic advantage. The government has initiated a joint maritime safety review aimed at reassuring international observers that Sri Lanka intends to handle the incident with full transparency and in accordance with international maritime norms. Diplomats have opened discreet channels with Tehran, New Delhi, Washington, and several Gulf capitals, not as an act of alignment, but to prevent premature narratives from hardening into geopolitical assumptions that could force Sri Lanka into positions it has no desire to occupy.

Neutrality, however, becomes most fragile precisely when events press hardest against its boundaries. The sight of foreign debris washing ashore has created a symbolic intrusion that no government can simply cordon off with patrols or press releases. The island now occupies a liminal space between spectator and participant, and this is a position familiar to many small states navigating the undertow of great power rivalry. Their neutrality becomes most prized by the international community at the exact moment it becomes most difficult for them to preserve. It is a paradox that is neither new nor avoidable. It is the structural reality of a world where crises migrate unpredictably across borders and through seas.

Sri Lanka now confronts a moment in which the temptation to withdraw into studied silence must be balanced against the need to shape the narrative before larger powers do so on its behalf. This is where the logic of the Colombo Accord becomes most compelling. The framework is not only a mechanism for easing Iran’s internal fragmentation. It is also a means for Sri Lanka to assert a form of agency that does not compromise its neutrality. By offering a venue for structured dialogue, the island positions itself not as a partisan actor, but as a stabilizing presence in a region increasingly defined by uncertainty at sea and volatility on land. In doing so, Sri Lanka shapes events before events shape Sri Lanka, which is the essential choice required of any state forced, however reluctantly, into the center of a crisis not of its own making.

The Narrowing Window

The sinking of the frigate has emerged as a stark emblem of a deeper reality. Iran’s transition is no longer a distant abstraction that can be managed at diplomatic arm’s length. It has shed the illusion of containment. The crisis now lives simultaneously in contested territorial waters, in competing claims of political legitimacy, and in the widening space between what factions assert and what realities unfold. Its center of gravity remains in Tehran, but its shockwaves have reached Colombo with an insistence that can no longer be ignored.

This moment reveals a simple but unforgiving truth. Statements will not steady the situation, and sanctions will not guide a fractured nation toward coherence. The forces now in motion are too varied, too suspicious of one another, and too willing to interpret every event as either an opportunity or an existential threat. The wrecked frigate near Sri Lanka’s shores is a reminder that crises born of political collapse do not respect geography. They travel outward until they encounter resistance or structure, and at present there is no structure worthy of the name.

The Colombo Accord does not pretend to offer a miracle. It offers something far more modest and far more necessary. It creates a disciplined mechanism within which Iran’s competing actors can confront one another without turning the region into their arena. It provides a framework for de-escalation at a moment when the absence of structure risks inviting a cascade of increasingly dangerous misunderstandings. The Accord is not a promise of peace. It is an attempt to slow the march toward catastrophe long enough for reason to reenter the conversation.

As investigations proceed and diplomats circle carefully around the wreckage, this one fact will not change. Without a neutral venue that can host structured dialogue, the next Iranian crisis will not limit itself to a sinking offshore. It will break outward in ways that no state in the region, and few beyond it, are prepared to manage. History rarely gives much warning before the window for action closes. Sri Lanka now finds itself standing at that window, and the world would be unwise to ignore the view from its shore.

Dr. Achala GunasekaraRockwell is a Sri Lankan–born scholar of international security affairs whose work focuses on political transitions, regional security architectures, and defence strategy. She holds advanced degrees from the University of Wisconsin and has published widely on geopolitical dynamics across the IndoPacific, South Asia, and the Middle East. Her research emphasizes negotiated transitions, smallstate diplomacy, and the intersection of security with political instability. Dr. GunasekaraRockwell writes in her personal capacity, and her views represent her own scholarly analysis.

Disclaimer

The views, interpretations, and analyses presented in this article are solely those of the author. They do not represent, reflect, or imply any official position of the US Government, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Air Force, Air University, or any other federal entity. This work was produced entirely in the author’s personal capacity, outside the scope of her official duties, and is completely unrelated to her employment or responsibilities within the US Government.

By Dr. Achala Gunasekara Rockwell