United Republican Front leader Patali Champika Ranawaka has cautioned that it would be dangerous if the memorandum of understanding signed between the UAE, India and Sri Lanka turned out to be a stepping stone towards — or a counter-formation to — any of the security blocs now taking shape across the region, Daily Mirror reported.
He was speaking at a public discussion on his latest book, Ekata Getuma, written in Sinhala, which traces the evolution of power struggles through world history.
The alliances he named
Ranawaka pointed to QUAD, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue linking the United States, India, Japan and Australia, and to AUKUS, the security partnership between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.
He said a further security partnership had been formed in recent times between Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia under the name “Mecca Agreement”, which he characterised as a counter-formation.
Sri Lanka should be cautious about these developments, he said, and it would be serious if the tripartite MoU were heading towards a formation intended to counter any of them.
The ‘Thucydides Trap’
Ranawaka invoked the Thucydides Trap — the proposition that of 12 historical contests for world supremacy, nine were settled by war. He said Chinese President Xi Jinping had referred to the idea during a bilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump.
Why he wrote the book
He said he decided to write after the collapse of global unity on health security during the pandemic and the outbreak of the war in Ukraine.
“If that war prolongs until next year, it will have a bearing on countries like Sri Lanka in terms of increased wheat flour prices,” he said. “Now the Strait of Hormuz is obstructed. It is a vital choke point. This is affecting Sri Lanka. I thought of educating the Sinhala masses.”
The Strait of Hormuz has been the subject of a prolonged standoff, with Iran most recently offering to reopen the waterway within seven days in a proposal Washington rejected.
The UAE’s engagement with Sri Lanka has been active in recent weeks, including a call on the Deputy Speaker in which the Emirati envoy raised the proposed Trincomalee energy hub.
