Ranil urged US Govt to pressurise Sri Lanka - Prof Peiris
External Affairs Minister Prof GL Peiris told
Parliament Thursday that Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has
requested the United States to pressurise the Sri Lankan Government to
publish an ‘Incident Report’ on alleged human rights violations and that
war crimes took place during the last phase of the humanitarian
operations to rescue people from the LTTE
Minister Prof G L Peiris |
Making a speech during his Ministry’s vote during the committee stage
of budget 2010, the Minister said this request by the Opposition Leader
had been published in the US State Department publication titled Sri
Lanka: Re-charting US strategy after the war prepared by the Committee
on Foreign Relations of the US. The committee working on after the war
situation has recorded their observations in this report. He quoted the
following paragraphs from the report: “Many Sri Lankan Government
officials seemed surprised by the barrage of international criticism and
intense public scrutiny they received following the war.
“They had expected instead, praise for defeating a notorious
terrorist group which pioneered suicide bombing techniques and
assassinated Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991 and Sri Lankan
President Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993 and space to make to a post
conflict environment.”
The Opposition Leader takes a different view. United National Party
and Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe said the United States was on
the right track in publishing the ‘Incident Report’ and should ‘keep
pressure on the Government.’
Wickremesinghe said: “Sri Lankans did not want to lose their
relationship with the United States, Government’s criticism of recent US
remarks was complete nonsense.”
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