US working with India to help Maldives towards elections

COLOMBO: The US is in touch with India over efforts to resolve the political crisis in Maldives and it wants to see the country progress towards holding elections, an American official here has said.

Valerie Fowler, the US charge d'affaires resident in Colombo has been quoted in a statement posted on the embassy website as saying that the US had been in touch with Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai in New Delhi and High Commissioner D M Mulay in Male.

The US is working with India and other international partners to see Maldives progress towards holding elections, it said.

"We understand the work of UN Mediator Pierre Yves Monette has been productive in helping to create an environment of constructive dialogue by all sides. The Commonwealth will have an important role to play in the months ahead.

"Assistant Secretary Bob Blake has been in regular contact with Special Envoy Sir Donald McKinnon, and we expect to work closely with the Commonwealth, both in terms of policy and technical support, to help Maldives work through the current situation to elections," the official said.

A nascent democracy, Maldives was thrown into political crisis when its first democratically elected president Mohamed Nasheed was ousted from power, in what he termed was a coup.

His then deputy, Mohamed Waheed Hassan, took the reins of the government and his administration has denied claims of a coup.

Nasheed's Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), on the other hand, has called for early elections to end the present impasse.

Under an India-brokered deal the two sides had agreed for an early election but the roadmap has not been agreed to as yet. Efforts by India and the Commonwealth have achieved little so far in terms of meeting the demand by Nasheed's MDP to hold early elections.