Prime Minister Narendra Modi today flew into the Sri Lankan capital in the early hours for a historic visit during which he is expected to hold talks with the country's top leadership.

Modi was received by Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe at the airport after he arrived in Colombo for a two-day visit at 5.25 am following an overnight journey from Port Louis in Mauritius in a special Air India plane.

Sri Lanka is the final stop of his three-nation tour of Indian Ocean island nations that took him to Seychelles and Mauritius. Modi, who is the first Indian prime minister to visit Lanka in 28 years, will today hold summit talks with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, who was in India last month on his first foreign trip after assuming office in January.

He will also hold talks with his Sri Lankan counterpart Ranil Wickramasinghe. The prime minister's visit to Lanka is considered to be an opportunity to further strengthen all aspects of the bilateral relationship. His trip to Lanka is also the first standalone prime ministerial visit to the island nation since 1987 when Rajiv Gandhi visited the country.