Sri Lanka signs Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the US?
The US has been mindful of growing Chinese inroads into Sri Lanka for long. Initially, it tried to replicate Chinese investment packages with its own Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact Grant worth $480 million to assist in the modernisation of Sri Lanka’s transport and land management sectors that is still pending parliamentary approval. Washington has been trying to pass the MCC Compact Grant for Sri Lanka since December 2016 during President Sirisena’s government, who kept the issue stalling for the next i.e. Rajapaksa administration to handle. During a media event convened by Cabinet spokesman Minister Bandula Gunawardene on July 01 to inform the status of the now controversial MCC when he discloses the signing of the SOFA. The Government of Sri Lanka has entered into the military agreement called Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), considered controversial even by an American ally The Philippines which abrogated the ‘pact’ a couple of months ago, with US. SOFA establis