Sri Lanka says it denied US request to land two aircraft at Mattala airport
Al Jazeera
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake says request made on February 26, two days before US and Israel launched war on Iran.
Sri Lanka’s president says his government turned down a request from the United States to land two US combat aircraft at a civilian airport earlier this month.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake told Sri Lanka’s parliament on Friday that Washington had requested permission for the aircraft to land at Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport in southern Sri Lanka from March 4 to 8.
The request was made on February 26, two days before the US and Israel launched their military offensive against Iran.
“They wanted to bring two warplanes armed with eight antiship missiles from a base in Djibouti”, Dissanayake told lawmakers. “We turned down the request to maintain Sri Lanka’s neutrality”, he added to applause.
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