The Honourable Acting Mayor of Colombo, Mr. Hussain Mohamed, Distinguished City Councillors, Citizens of Colombo, Ladies and Gentlemen:
In conveying a keenly felt gratitude for the kind and generous sentiments which you have just expressed, may I confirm, on behalf of my wife and I, our very real appreciation of the welcome that the people of this beautiful city have so readily accorded us. Of course, your country and its people have a distinguished reputation of extending hospitality and our visit is giving us a particularly memorable example of this. I am also most grateful for your kind gesture of presenting to me the Key of Colombo. Indeed, I regard the presentation of the key to this city as an honour that you have bestowed on all Maldivians. I have every confidence that it will be a symbol of not only past associations but also of further consolidation of the traditional ties that unite the people of Sri Lanka and the people of my country.
The bonds that unite the Maldives and Sri Lanka are not of the recent past. Legend has it that once upon a time a prince of royal birth from the island of Serendib named Koimala Kalo, who had married the King’s daughter, came to the Maldives and that at the invitation of the islanders settled down in the country. Whatever the authenticity of this story may be, it is believed that among the several waves of migrations of people of Aryan stock who settled down in the Maldives about four or five centuries before the Christian Era, were people of the Lion Race from this very island. Evidence of language, physical traits, folklore and customs, suggest that such may be the case.
This visit to Colombo has for me a very personal significance for it was in this city, when I visited it for the first time as a young boy, that I witnessed the colourful procession of the then Prime Minister of the Maldives, the late Mr. Amin Didi, making his ceremonial way in the name of our Sultan to pay the annual tribute to the British Governor of the day. At that time, of course, both our countries were associated in one way or another with the British Crown. Time has wrought great changes and today I am here as the Head of State of one sovereign nation visiting another sovereign nation.
Colombo holds also a very special place in the minds and affections of Maldivians. It has been host to some of our most prominent sons who have studied here and then returned home, armed with not only the tools of academic achievement, but also mindful of the kindness shown to them by the people of the city. My wife is also one of the students who received their early education in Colombo. She has very fond recollections of those happy school days.
As the Deputy Ambassador of my country to Sri Lanka in the mid 1970s, I too had occasion to know at first hand of the kindness and hospitality of the people of this city. I then had the pleasure and privilege of establishing close, personal relationships with many eminent citizens of Colombo.
This morning, my wife and I had the great pleasure of visiting your new and exciting capital, Sri Jayewardenepura. The magnificent new Parliament House and the Hospital Complex represent new landmarks in Sri Lanka’s rapid national progress.
It is my sincere and earnest wish that by being here the close accord and amity which so evidently exists between the people of Sri Lanka and the people of our Republic will not only assume a new significance but serve also to give it a renewed impetus and purpose.
Mr. Acting Mayor, City Councillors, if the quality and sincerity of the welcome you and your citizens have accorded my wife and I is to be the criterion for the realisation of such a wish then the matter is quite beyond doubt.
I thank you again.