President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu has stated that the Maldives military will begin monitoring the country's territorial waters next month.

Speaking to the people of Manadhoo island as part of the President's visit to the islands of N. Atoll this evening, the President said that the Maldives has not been able to maintain its waters on its own for a long time and has always maintained the sea with the help of others.

"Our seas have always been monitored and looked after by others. We may not have had the capability to take on this responsibility ourselves, but we are working on building our capability to maintain our exclusive economic zone by ourselves. Hopefully, starting next month, our seas will be monitored 24 hours by MNDF," he said.

The President said that the opposition has been misleading the public by saying that Indian soldiers in the Maldives were being sent away for namesake, but that the government has already signed a letter of exchange with the Indian authorities.

"Under this, one-third of the people are being taken before March 10, and now the civilian team who have replaced them have arrived. The rest of the military personnel will leave in another two months. We have to do things within a certain set of rules, as per diplomatic policies," he said.

He said he was confident that all Indian troops would be dispatched by May 10 and added that air ambulance services would start on Friday as part of efforts to build capacity to do things on their own.