{"id":127690,"date":"2022-08-07T16:02:03","date_gmt":"2022-08-07T23:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=127690"},"modified":"2022-08-07T16:02:03","modified_gmt":"2022-08-07T23:02:03","slug":"chinese-embassy-seeks-urgent-meeting-with-sri-lankan-authorities-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/08\/07\/chinese-embassy-seeks-urgent-meeting-with-sri-lankan-authorities-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese embassy seeks urgent meeting with Sri Lankan authorities; Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy The Daily Mirror<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>China&#8217;s embassy has sought an urgent meeting with senior Sri Lankan authorities after Colombo sought a deferment of the planned docking of a high-tech Chinese research vessel at the strategic Hambantota port over which India raised concerns, sources said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Chinese space and satellite tracking research vessel &#8216;Yuan Wang 5&#8217; was scheduled to dock at the Hambantota Port from August 11 to 17, weeks after Sri Lanka witnessed a major political turmoil following massive mass protests over the country&#8217;s worst economic crisis in decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A &#8216;third-person&#8217; note from Sri Lanka&#8217;s Foreign Ministry to the Chinese embassy in Colombo dated August 5 says &#8220;the ministry wishes to request that the arrival of the vessel Yuan Wang 5 in Hambantota to be deferred until further consultations are made on the matter.&#8221; The Chinese embassy in Colombo sought an urgent meeting with the higher Sri Lankan authorities to discuss the issue after receiving the note from the Foreign Ministry seeking a delay in the visit, sources here said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some Sri Lankan news portals also reported that Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe held a closed-door meeting with China&#8217;s Ambassador Qi Zhenhong after Colombo sought a deferment of the planned docking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the President&#8217;s Office denied the media reports over the meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On July 12, amidst the political turmoil in Sri Lanka, the then government approved the Chinese vessel&#8217;s docking at the Hambantota port.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Chinese vessel was expected to dock at the Sri Lankan port for &#8220;refuelling and &#8216;replenishment&#8217; and will conduct satellite control and research tracking in the northwestern part of the Indian Ocean region through August and September.(<strong>PTI<\/strong>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy The Daily Mirror China&#8217;s embassy has sought an urgent meeting with senior Sri Lankan authorities after Colombo sought a deferment of the planned docking of a high-tech Chinese research vessel at the strategic Hambantota port over which India raised concerns, sources said. The Chinese space and satellite tracking research vessel &#8216;Yuan Wang 5&#8217; was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}