Top Chinese military delegation in Lanka

12 December 2011 08:30 pm

A high-level Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) delegation headed by General Ma Hixiaotian the Deputy Chief of General Staff arrived in Sri Lanka to discuss professional training, exercises and further promotion of military assistance to Sri Lanka.

The members of the delegation will meet Army Commander Jagath Jayasuriya today in a move to strengthen bilateral relationship between the two armies and provide increased opportunities to the Sri Lankan Army.

The delegation will explore ways of increasing the intake of our trainee officers to Chinese military academies with requests to be chanelled through the Ministry of Defence.

Sometime ago a similar meeting was held with a delegation from the PLA Navy and this resulted in representatives being sent to special military training programmes, such as the annual ‘Exercise Cormorant Strike’.  (Supun Dias)