Modi's Seychelles, Mauritius, Sri Lanka visit begins on Tuesday

New Delhi, March 9 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will embark on Tuesday on a five-day visit to the three island nations of Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka.

Briefing reporters ahead of prime minister's visit, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar said India has historical linkages with the three countries as also "very strong" people-to-people bonds.

He said India's commercial cooperation has grown significantly with the three ocean economies and they offer new possibilities of cooperation.

"We are very bullish about the relationships," Jaishankar said.

In Seychelles, the first stop of his tour, Modi will hold bilateral discussions with President James Alexis Michel to strengthen maritime ties and enhance bilateral development cooperation.

Modi will be the second Indian prime minister to visit Seychelles after Indira Gandhi's visit in 1981.

The prime minister will visit Mauritius on March 11-12 where he will hold intensive meetings with Prime Minister Sir Anerood Jugnauth to further strengthen India's special and unique relations with that country. He will address also Mauritian parliament.

He will visit Sri Lanka in the last leg of his visit on March 13-14 and will hold meetings with President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Modi will address a special sitting of the Sri Lankan parliament and also lay a wreath at the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) Memorial and visit the Mahabodhi Society.

Jaishankar said the prime minister will hand over some houses built with India's assistance for the internally displaced persons in Sri Lanka.

"We have been a fairly significant contributor to rebuilding of Sri Lanka," he said.

Jaishankar said Modi's visit to Sri Lanka will be the first bilateral visit by an Indian prime minister in over two decades.

Asked if Modi will meeting former Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa, Jaishankar said he "did not have anything on that yet."

Modi had said in tweets Sunday that he was looking forward to enhancing India's ties with the friendly Indian Ocean countries of Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka.