EAM Jaishankar's visit was crucial in ending debt restructuring: Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka on Tuesday said the recent visit by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar was important in ending its debt restructuring with international sovereign bond holders.

Jaishankar, who made a day-long trip to Sri Lanka on October 4, became the first foreign dignitary to visit the island nation after Anura Kumara Dissanayake assumed office as the new president on September 23.

Cabinet spokesman and foreign affairs minister Vijitha Herath told reporters here that India's signing up for the agreement as a bilateral creditor endorsing that the agreement was compatible with the comparative treatment principle in debt restructuring.

Ahead of the presidential polls last month, cash-strapped Sri Lanka had on September 19 announced that it had reached an in principle agreement with the external commercial creditors for the restructuring of approximately USD 17.5 billion of external commercial debts.

Sri Lanka declared its first-ever sovereign default in mid-April 2022, having run out