Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi inaugurated a power and irrigation project in Sri Lanka on Wednesday, but arrived in the country without his interior minister, who is wanted over a deadly 1994 bombing.
Raisi鈥檚 Airbus A340 aircraft first landed at an airport in southern Sri Lanka nearby the $514 million Uma Oya irrigation and hydro-electricity project.
It was due to be commissioned in March 2014 but international sanctions against Iran saw the project mired in a decade of delays, Sri Lanka has said.
Raisi told a public rally at the Uma Oya site that Western countries tried to convince others that they were the sole source of knowledge and technology, but 鈥榮kilful Iranian experts鈥� had developed their own capacities.
鈥極ur enemies did not favour development and progress for Iran, but the Iranian people were determined in order to realise it,鈥� he said.
Sri Lanka funded most of the dam project after an initial investment of $50 million from the Export Development Bank of Iran in 2010, while construction was carried out by Iranian firm Farab.
Raisi then flew to the capital Colombo and was accorded a 21-gun salute before talks with Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, whose office said the visit symbolised 鈥榯he cooperation between the two nations in this significant infrastructure endeavour鈥�.
The Uma Oya鈥檚 two reservoirs are slated to irrigate 4,500 hectares (11,100 acres) of new land, while the hydro dam generators have a capacity of 120 megawatts.
Iran is a key buyer of Sri Lanka鈥檚 tea, the island鈥檚 main export commodity.
Sri Lanka is currently repaying a legacy debt of $215 million for Iranian oil by exporting tea. The country鈥檚 only oil refinery was built by Iran in 1969.
Raisi arrived in Sri Lanka after a three-day visit to Pakistan that followed tit-for-tat missile strikes in January in the region of Balochistan, which straddles the two nations鈥� porous border.
Tehran carried out the first strikes against an anti-Iran group inside Pakistan, with Islamabad retaliating by hitting 鈥榤ilitant targets鈥� inside Iran.
Both nations have previously accused each other of harbouring militants on their respective sides of the border.
