Abdulla Yameen tried to play India against China: Maldives Foreign Minister

NEW DELHI: Maldives foreign minister Abdulla Shahid admitted on Tuesday that former president Abdulla Yameen tried to play India against China as a “puppet master”, and said the new government was looking into the deals struck with China to assess the debt accumulation.

Maldives knows the importance of India as it is an “important” partner, said Shahid who was on his first visit to India and was speaking to a select group of reporters. Maldives has sought a currencyswap agreement with India with a six-month turnaround instead of three months to ride over the currency reserve crisis.

Maldives finance minister Ibrahim Ameer, who is also part of the delegation of ministers visiting India, said: “The Chinese portion of the investment is taking long in assessment because all the deals took place in secrecy.” “Going forward, our main objective would be to reduce the cost of these infrastructure projects,” he explained.


Some of the inflated projects are China-Maldives bridge, port development project and a project involving construction of around 1,000 housing units.