Promising to respect democracy, the new Maldives President Mohammed Waheed has told the United States that he intends to form a national unity government which would include participation of opposition parties.
"President Waheed informed us that the security situation in the Maldives is now under control and generally peaceful," State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said while referring to a telephonic conversation between the Assistant
Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Robert Blake and Waheed on Wednesday morning.
"He expressed his strong commitment to a peaceful transition of power, the preservation of democracy," Nuland told reporters at her daily news conference.
The US official said that the Maldivian president has expressed his intent to form a national unity government that will include participation from the opposition parties in the lead-up to the regularly scheduled presidential election, which will be in November 2013.
Closely following the situation in Maldives, the US embassy in Colombo is sending its officials to the country, she added.