{"id":155222,"date":"2026-03-19T16:01:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T23:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=155222"},"modified":"2026-03-19T16:01:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T23:01:26","slug":"us-envoy-sergio-gor-meets-dissanayake-pushes-for-stronger-ties-in-indian-ocean-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2026\/03\/19\/us-envoy-sergio-gor-meets-dissanayake-pushes-for-stronger-ties-in-indian-ocean-region\/","title":{"rendered":"US envoy Sergio Gor meets Dissanayake, pushes for stronger ties in Indian Ocean region"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Courtesy The Telegraph India<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>&#8216;Discussions focused on strengthening bilateral ties and Sri Lanka\u2019s position on the Middle East conflict and its challenges,&#8217; the President&#8217;s Media Division (PMD) says in a post on X<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The US Special Representative for South and Central Asia Sergio Gor and Sri Lanka President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Thursday discussed strengthening of bilateral relations and the island nation&#8217;s position on the West Asia crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The US Special envoys\u2019 visit to Sri Lanka comes at a time when Sri Lanka came to be embroiled in the joint US-Israeli war against Iran since February 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gor met with Dissanayake at the Presidential Secretariat as part of US efforts to safeguard vital sea lanes and secure ports, reinforce mutually beneficial trade and commercial ties, and advance a free, open, and prosperous Indo-Pacific for the benefit of both our peoples,\u201d a release from the US Pacific Command said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gor and Dissanayake&#8217;s discussions focused on strengthening bilateral ties and Sri Lanka\u2019s position on the Middle East conflict and its challenges,\u201d the President&#8217;s Media Division (PMD) said in a post on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The US Special envoy will also travel to Maldives after Sri Lanka in the 5-day visit for high-level engagements focused on advancing cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On March 4, the US torpedoed the Iranian frigate Iris Dena killing 84 sailors while 32 escaped. Two days later, a second Iranian vessel, Iris Bushehr, sought entry to Colombo port with 219 sailors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka asked the vessel to be diverted to the eastern port of Trincomalee from its anchor outside the port here. A total of 204 of the sailors are now accommodated at the Naval facility near Colombo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy The Telegraph India &#8216;Discussions focused on strengthening bilateral ties and Sri Lanka\u2019s position on the Middle East conflict and its challenges,&#8217; the President&#8217;s Media Division (PMD) says in a post on X The US Special Representative for South and Central Asia Sergio Gor and Sri Lanka President Anura Kumara Dissanayake on Thursday discussed strengthening [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155222","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=155222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":155223,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155222\/revisions\/155223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}