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Maria Siow

Two days before the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran, Washington asked Sri Lanka to let two armed warplanes use an airport on its southern coast.
Colombo said no, Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake recently revealed – a decision analysts said reflected the Indian Ocean island nation’s desire to avoid being drawn into a foreign conflict from which it had “nothing to gain”.
The request, made on February 26, reportedly sought to relocate two aircraft from a US base in Djibouti to Mattala International Airport from March 4 to 8.
“They wanted to bring two warplanes armed with eight anti-ship missiles,” Dissanayake said. “We said ‘no’.”

Sri Lanka’s refusal did not keep the war at arm’s length for long. On March 4, a US submarine torpedoed Iranian frigate IRIS Dena just off the island’s coast.
Colombo also turned away three Iranian naval vessels that requested a port call from March 9 to 13, upon returning from exercises in India.
“Had we said ‘yes’ to Iran, we would have had to say ‘yes’ to the US as well,” Dissanayake said.
Still recovering from its worst financial crisis since independence, Sri Lanka depends on the West for export markets, the Gulf for fuel and the wider Indian Ocean economy for the remittances that keep millions of families afloat.

It imports 38 per cent of its oil and 17 per cent of its gas from the United Arab Emirates, with a further 11 per cent of its oil from Saudi Arabia. The South Asian nation also exports nearly US$1 billion worth of goods annually to the Gulf, a market that accounts for roughly 38 per cent of its remittances.
Then there is America. The US is Sri Lanka’s single largest merchandise export market, receiving around 23 per cent of its total exports – close to US$3 billion in 2024 and 2025 – and more than 40 per cent of its garment shipments.
“The Sri Lankan government does not want to be drawn into a conflict from which it has nothing to gain,” said defence analyst Frederic Grare, a senior research fellow at the Australian National University’s National Security College.
Escalation at Diego Garcia
The risk of conflict washing up on Sri Lanka’s doorstep increased further on Friday with Iran’s attempted missile strike on the joint US-UK military base at Diego Garcia – a remote Indian Ocean atoll roughly 4,000km (2,500 miles) from Iran and 1,700km (1,050 miles) from Sri Lanka.
If Colombo was seen to be siding with Washington, an Iranian attack on the island was now a genuine possibility, Grare said.
Friday’s strike, which marked the first time Tehran had tried to target the base, had only hardened Sri Lanka’s resolve “to maintain neutrality”, he added.

Added to this was the island nation’s unhappiness with the conflict itself, said political scientist Sumit Ganguly, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution who specialises in South Asian politics.
“With hardly a navy worth its name, it can ill afford to allow the war to come closer to its shores,” he said.
Sri Lanka’s naval forces are widely regarded as being limited to coastal defence, constrained by tight budgets and with little power-projection capability.
The island was “no stranger to the idea that foreign powers would see it as an ideal place from which their power can be projected”, said defence analyst Nilanthan Niruthan, executive director of the Centre for Law and Security Studies.
It sits directly astride the primary east-west maritime corridor linking the Suez Canal and the Strait of Malacca, through which nearly 70 per cent of the world’s oil shipments pass.
“So if any conflict does spread to the island’s territorial waters, that would turn into a global disaster,” Niruthan said.


Risk of trade reprisals
For Dissanayake’s government, the primary concern would be limiting the economic fallout, said Rajni Gamage, a research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies.
The conflict is already inflicting fresh pain on an economy that went into total meltdown in 2022, amid foreign exchange shortages, unsustainable debt and policy failures.
Memories of the food shortages, mass protests and long queues for fuel that resulted were still “very fresh”, Gamage said.
“The war will have a heavy economic cost on Sri Lanka, with disrupted supply chains, rising cost of oil and food imports,” she said, also citing the knock-on effects on tourism and remittances.
The government was acutely sensitive to any economic hardship that could cause a drop in its popularity, Gamage said.
Noting Sri Lanka’s economic reliance on the West and India in particular, she said Colombo was under pressure to avoid “bringing the war close to home”.
The best possible option is to keep one’s head down and ride out the storm
Nilanthan Niruthan, defence analyst
Niruthan’s advice for Sri Lanka was to stay quiet and wait it out.
“The best possible option is to keep one’s head down and ride out the storm, rather than calling attention to ourselves and pasting a target on our own back,” he said. “Especially when there is nothing to gain by picking a side.”
Still, maintaining a position of neutrality would be easier said than done, Niruthan added.
Given the level of Sri Lanka’s exposure to the US market, trade retaliation “could bring the economy to its knees”, he said.
For now, Niruthan does not believe Washington considers Colombo “important enough to warrant any retaliation or reprisals”.
But that assessment “could change in a heartbeat”, he warned.


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Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s refusal to host US warplanes before Iran war risks trade backlash

A US F-35C Lightning II prepares to land on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on March 3. It is not clear which warplanes the US asked Sri Lanka to host. Photo: US Navy/AFP

A Sri Lankan naval vessel approaches the Iranian vessel IRIS Bushehr on March 5, a day after the Iranian military ship IRIS Dena was torpedoed off the island’s coast. Photo: Sri Lanka Navy/Reuters

Motorists wait in long queues to refuel their vehicles at a petrol station on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka, on March 15. Photo: AFP

An aerial view of Diego Garcia, part of the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Photo: US Navy/AP

Iran’s stranded sailors wait out the war in Sri Lanka amid US pressure

Medical personnel and Sri Lanka Navy sailors provide emergency treatment to an injured Iranian rescued from the IRIS Dena on March 4. Photo: Sri Lanka Navy/Reuters

Sri Lanka Navy personnel assist Iranian sailors from the IRIS Dena after responding to a distress call on March 4. Photo: Sri Lanka Navy/Reuters

A member of staff from the Iranian embassy in Sri Lanka reacts on Thursday while standing in front of the hospital where injured sailors are receiving treatment. Photo: Reuters

Sri Lanka’s President Anura Kumara Dissanayake speaks at a news conference in Colombo March 5. Photo: Sri Lankan President Media Division/Xinhua

A Sri Lankan Muslim man holds a placard during a protest in Colombo on Friday against US-Israeli attacks on Iran. Photo: AP

US sinking of Iranian warship near Sri Lanka sparks regional anxiety, pressure on India

Iranian warship IRIS Dena is seen in the Bay of Bengal during the International Fleet Review held at Visakhapatnam, India, on February 18. Photo: AP

A frame grab from a video shows what the US Department of Defence says is periscope footage of a US Navy submarine firing on and sinking an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean. Photo: US Department of Defence / AFP

A man checks the local newspaper, following a submarine attack on the Iranian military ship, IRIS Dena, off the coast of Sri Lanka, in Galle, Sri Lanka, on Thursday. Photo: Reuters

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Canadian counterpart Mark Carney at Hyderabad House in New Delhi on Monday. Photo: The Canadian Press via AP

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Trying to keep conflict at arm’s length by distancing itself from the US could bring Sri Lanka’s economy ‘to its knees’, analysts say


Trying to keep conflict at arm’s length by distancing itself from the US could bring Sri Lanka’s economy ‘to its knees’, analysts say.


Sri Lanka’s refusal to host US warplanes before Iran war risks trade backlash

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Trying to keep conflict at arm’s length by distancing itself from the US could bring Sri Lanka’s economy ‘to its knees’, analysts say

Trying to keep conflict at arm’s length by distancing itself from the US could bring Sri Lanka’s economy ‘to its knees’, analysts say