The Pulse | Diplomacy | South Asia

Sri Lanka is Trying to Stay Neutral in a War that Punishes Neutrality

How long can a small, vulnerable country continue to balance between adversaries if the war widens further and the pressure to choose sides intensifies?

Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, March 6, 2026.

Sri Lanka’s attempt to stay neutral in the U.S-Israel war on Iran has become an important foreign policy test for the National People’s Power government. Addressing parliament last week, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said military assets of either party to the conflict are not welcome in Sri Lanka.

Dissanayake said that in late February, the government denied permission for two U.S. military aircraft to land at Mattala airport and also refused a request by three Iranian naval ships to dock in Sri Lanka. Later, it declined to support a Bahraini proposal at the United Nations against Iran, saying the proposal was one-sided. These should be taken in the backdrop of Sri Lanka rescuing 32 Iranian sailors from IRIS Dena, which was sunk by the U.S., and taking control of IRIS Busher and looking after its crew. The government has insisted that its actions are guided by international law and compassion.

Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath said in a recent interview that Sri Lanka’s approach to the conflict is guided by three considerations — prevention of conflict, impartiality, and protection of territory. In other words, Sri Lanka says it will not assist any party to the conflict, will not act in a way that favors one side, and will not allow its territory to be used to benefit any belligerent. Herath said that this is why Colombo rejected both the Iranian and American requests. He said that approving one would have made it much harder to refuse the other.

Sri Lanka did not support the Bahrain-backed U.N. text on Iran because of the same logic. According to Herath, the proposal was not balanced because it condemned attacks by Iran without acknowledging attacks from the other side. A U.N. press statement said that “nearly 140 Member States co-sponsored the resolution.” Sri Lanka was among a handful of states that refused to go with the flow. Claiming neutrality, it could not endorse a text that singled out one camp in an escalating regional war. That decision was consistent with Dissanayake’s argument that Sri Lanka must be seen as fair if it is to preserve both its dignity and its international standing. This level of rational thinking had been absent from Sri Lankan foreign policy for a long time.

Sri Lanka was a non-aligned/neutral country over several periods of its post-independence history. These were periods when it achieved some noticeable foreign policy gains. This neutrality is not driven by idealism alone. It is also rooted in vulnerability. There were always actors that Sri Lanka could not afford to anger.

Right now, the U.S. remains Sri Lanka’s largest single export destination, accounting for 23 percent of merchandise exports in 2025, with exports to the U.S. reaching nearly $ 3 billion. Sri Lanka’s garment sector is especially exposed to Western markets, and Herath said that more than 40 percent of garment exports go to the United States. Any serious rupture with Washington would carry immediate economic consequences for a country still recovering from its financial collapse.

Sri Lanka also cannot ignore the wider West Asia, where more than 1 million Sri Lankans work. Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been among the top destinations for Sri Lankan workers. Around 20,000 Sri Lankans work in Israel, according to an Al Jazeera report. Remittances sent by migrant workers are a lifeline for Sri Lanka and any conflict in West Asia is never just a distant geopolitical event; it is a direct threat to remittance flows and domestic stability. Iran matters, too, as it is one of the island’s key tea buyers.

Dissanayake has linked Sri Lanka’s positions on the war to its fuel and gas vulnerability, arguing in parliament that the country’s two major exposures in West Asia are energy supply chains and overseas workers. Sri Lanka is trying to stay neutral because it cannot afford to alienate any side that matters to its trade, labor, or energy security.

That does not mean Sri Lanka has been passive. Colombo has actively tried to separate humanitarian obligation from strategic alignment. After attacks involving Iranian vessels near Sri Lanka’s waters, Sri Lankan authorities carried out rescue operations, recovered survivors and bodies, and provided treatment and controlled accommodation under international legal procedures. The government has used these actions to argue that neutrality does not mean indifference. It means refusing military participation while still fulfilling humanitarian and maritime obligations. That distinction is important because Colombo is trying to show that neutrality can coexist with action, provided the action is rule-bound and not partisan.

Sri Lanka’s present language echoes rhetoric from the non-aligned tradition that dates to the mid-1950s. Prior to 1956, Sri Lanka could not strictly be described as non-aligned because it largely followed the British lead in foreign affairs and still hosted British military bases. SWRD Bandaranaike, who came into power in 1956, adopted a more dynamic non-aligned approach, summarized in the phrase “friends of all, enemies of none.” He coupled that with the removal of British bases, while insisting that non-alignment was not inherently anti-Western.

Foreign policy expert Shelton Kodikara, in his journal article “Major Trends in Sri Lanka’s Non-Alignment Policy after 1956,” said that this broad orientation persisted across later governments, including in relation to wars involving Israel and Arab states. Today’s claims of neutrality are therefore not invented from scratch; they draw on a real, if uneven, Sri Lankan foreign policy lineage.

Yet history alone can’t guide Sri Lanka’s neutrality in 2026. The regional setting has changed. India, the dominant power in the region and the current chairmanship of the Indian Ocean Rim Association, has increasingly let go of its non-aligned tradition. India’s own ties with both Israel and the United States have deepened. A few days before Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran, India and Israel elevated their relationship to a “Special Strategic Partnership.” India’s ties with the United States have also continued to broaden across defense, energy, technology, supply chains, and Indo-Pacific strategy. For Sri Lanka, that creates a harder strategic environment: its closest and most consequential neighbor is no longer practicing the kind of distance from rival blocs that Colombo once associated with non-alignment.

Denying access to U.S. warplanes, turning away Iranian ships, and refusing to endorse what it saw as a one-sided resolution against Iran were all meant to send the same message: Sri Lanka does not want this war imported into its territory or diplomacy. The problem is that neutrality is getting harder to sustain as regional alignments harden and economic dependencies deepen. For now, Colombo is still trying to balance. The real question is how long a small, vulnerable state can keep doing so if the war widens further and the pressure to choose becomes less avoidable.

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Sri Lanka’s attempt to stay neutral in the U.S-Israel war on Iran has become an important foreign policy test for the National People’s Power government. Addressing parliament last week, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake said military assets of either party to the conflict are not welcome in Sri Lanka.

Dissanayake said that in late February, the government denied permission for two U.S. military aircraft to land at Mattala airport and also refused a request by three Iranian naval ships to dock in Sri Lanka. Later, it declined to support a Bahraini proposal at the United Nations against Iran, saying the proposal was one-sided. These should be taken in the backdrop of Sri Lanka rescuing 32 Iranian sailors from IRIS Dena, which was sunk by the U.S., and taking control of IRIS Busher and looking after its crew. The government has insisted that its actions are guided by international law and compassion.

Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath said in a recent interview that Sri Lanka’s approach to the conflict is guided by three considerations — prevention of conflict, impartiality, and protection of territory. In other words, Sri Lanka says it will not assist any party to the conflict, will not act in a way that favors one side, and will not allow its territory to be used to benefit any belligerent. Herath said that this is why Colombo rejected both the Iranian and American requests. He said that approving one would have made it much harder to refuse the other.

Sri Lanka did not support the Bahrain-backed U.N. text on Iran because of the same logic. According to Herath, the proposal was not balanced because it condemned attacks by Iran without acknowledging attacks from the other side. A U.N. press statement said that “nearly 140 Member States co-sponsored the resolution.” Sri Lanka was among a handful of states that refused to go with the flow. Claiming neutrality, it could not endorse a text that singled out one camp in an escalating regional war. That decision was consistent with Dissanayake’s argument that Sri Lanka must be seen as fair if it is to preserve both its dignity and its international standing. This level of rational thinking had been absent from Sri Lankan foreign policy for a long time.

Sri Lanka was a non-aligned/neutral country over several periods of its post-independence history. These were periods when it achieved some noticeable foreign policy gains. This neutrality is not driven by idealism alone. It is also rooted in vulnerability. There were always actors that Sri Lanka could not afford to anger.

Right now, the U.S. remains Sri Lanka’s largest single export destination, accounting for 23 percent of merchandise exports in 2025, with exports to the U.S. reaching nearly $ 3 billion. Sri Lanka’s garment sector is especially exposed to Western markets, and Herath said that more than 40 percent of garment exports go to the United States. Any serious rupture with Washington would carry immediate economic consequences for a country still recovering from its financial collapse.

Sri Lanka also cannot ignore the wider West Asia, where more than 1 million Sri Lankans work. Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been among the top destinations for Sri Lankan workers. Around 20,000 Sri Lankans work in Israel, according to an Al Jazeera report. Remittances sent by migrant workers are a lifeline for Sri Lanka and any conflict in West Asia is never just a distant geopolitical event; it is a direct threat to remittance flows and domestic stability. Iran matters, too, as it is one of the island’s key tea buyers.

Dissanayake has linked Sri Lanka’s positions on the war to its fuel and gas vulnerability, arguing in parliament that the country’s two major exposures in West Asia are energy supply chains and overseas workers. Sri Lanka is trying to stay neutral because it cannot afford to alienate any side that matters to its trade, labor, or energy security.

That does not mean Sri Lanka has been passive. Colombo has actively tried to separate humanitarian obligation from strategic alignment. After attacks involving Iranian vessels near Sri Lanka’s waters, Sri Lankan authorities carried out rescue operations, recovered survivors and bodies, and provided treatment and controlled accommodation under international legal procedures. The government has used these actions to argue that neutrality does not mean indifference. It means refusing military participation while still fulfilling humanitarian and maritime obligations. That distinction is important because Colombo is trying to show that neutrality can coexist with action, provided the action is rule-bound and not partisan.

Sri Lanka’s present language echoes rhetoric from the non-aligned tradition that dates to the mid-1950s. Prior to 1956, Sri Lanka could not strictly be described as non-aligned because it largely followed the British lead in foreign affairs and still hosted British military bases. SWRD Bandaranaike, who came into power in 1956, adopted a more dynamic non-aligned approach, summarized in the phrase “friends of all, enemies of none.” He coupled that with the removal of British bases, while insisting that non-alignment was not inherently anti-Western.

Foreign policy expert Shelton Kodikara, in his journal article “Major Trends in Sri Lanka’s Non-Alignment Policy after 1956,” said that this broad orientation persisted across later governments, including in relation to wars involving Israel and Arab states. Today’s claims of neutrality are therefore not invented from scratch; they draw on a real, if uneven, Sri Lankan foreign policy lineage.

Yet history alone can’t guide Sri Lanka’s neutrality in 2026. The regional setting has changed. India, the dominant power in the region and the current chairmanship of the Indian Ocean Rim Association, has increasingly let go of its non-aligned tradition. India’s own ties with both Israel and the United States have deepened. A few days before Israel and the U.S. attacked Iran, India and Israel elevated their relationship to a “Special Strategic Partnership.” India’s ties with the United States have also continued to broaden across defense, energy, technology, supply chains, and Indo-Pacific strategy. For Sri Lanka, that creates a harder strategic environment: its closest and most consequential neighbor is no longer practicing the kind of distance from rival blocs that Colombo once associated with non-alignment.

Denying access to U.S. warplanes, turning away Iranian ships, and refusing to endorse what it saw as a one-sided resolution against Iran were all meant to send the same message: Sri Lanka does not want this war imported into its territory or diplomacy. The problem is that neutrality is getting harder to sustain as regional alignments harden and economic dependencies deepen. For now, Colombo is still trying to balance. The real question is how long a small, vulnerable state can keep doing so if the war widens further and the pressure to choose becomes less avoidable.

Rathindra Kuruwita is a journalist and a researcher from Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka foreign policy

Sri Lanka non-alignment

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