Maldives cancelled Muizzu’s meeting with US ambassador to India Sergio Gor last month
Maldives cancelled Muizzu’s meeting with US ambassador to India Sergio Gor last month
US ambassador to India and Donald Trump confidante Sergio Gor apparently got a taste of “Maldivian hospitality” last month when he was unable to meet President Mohamed Muizzu during his visit to Male on March 23.
While Gor tweeted about his meetings with the Maldivian foreign and defence ministers the same day, a scheduled meeting with President Muizzu was cancelled by the Maldivian side at the last moment. Apparently, when the powerful 39-year-old US ambassador asked Muizzu’s office to reconsider the meeting through diplomatic channels, it is understood that the Maldivian side proposed a private behind-the-doors meeting with President Muizzu. This, apparently, was declined by the US envoy for Central and South Asian affairs, who left Male for Delhi without meeting the man who swept to power on an anti-India mandate on November 17, 2023.
Even though everyone is tight-lipped about the non-meeting with Gor, it is learnt that Muizzu kept away from the US Ambassador as he is against the US-Israel war on Iran and is apparently virulently opposed to the Benjamin Netanyahu government and Israel. A more palatable view floated in Male is that President Muizzu has hardly met anyone for the past few months as he does not want to be pressured by visitors on Maldives politics and development
