Korean envoy tells international community :

Support Lanka

Rasika Somarathna in Matara

The international community should maintain vigilance, and not create opportunities, even inadvertently, for terrorism to resurface in Sri Lanka, Korean ambassador to Colombo Jongmoon Choi said.

He said the international community should give credit to Sri Lanka for its remarkable

resilience and achievements and should support its uplift from the ravages of conflict.

The Korean ambassador was speaking at the opening of the Korea-Sri Lanka Friendship Hospital built at Kumburugamuwa, Matara.

The hospital, partly funded by Korean government, was opened by President Rajapaksa on Saturday. Ambassador Choi said although terrorism was vanquished militarily within Sri Lanka, remnants of the organisation were still active elsewhere.

In this backdrop, he said it was important for the international community to ensure that terrorist sympathisers will not work to destabilise peace and the ongoing development within Sri Lanka by working from outside the country.

“Sri Lanka has gone through very painful and challenging times over the past. It is hard to find any parallel cases in any other places in the world,” the ambassador said. He said not only conflict but natural calamities such as the tsunami in 2004 wreaked havoc in Sri Lanka and added on that occasion too the country had proved its remarkable resilience to come back from devastation. Leaving behind these scars, Sri Lanka is now writing a new chapter in its history and it is the responsibility of the international community to lend its hand to sustain this uplift, Choi said.

He said since the end of the terrorist conflict, Sri Lanka has prioritised rehabilitation, reconstruction, reintegration and reconciliation for sustainable peace and development.

“The government should also be commended for rehabilitating nearly 12,000 ex-combatants and re-integrating them into the society,” he added.

Speaking about the hospital, the ambassador said the Korean government had come forward to assist heeding a request by President Rajapaksa during his tenure as Prime Minister.

The request was made to the Korean premier during a visit to the country by President Rajapaksa, he said.

He said President Rajapaksa had initiated sending Sri Lankan migrant workers to Korea during his tenure as the Labour Minister and this too has gone from strength to strength with more than 25,000 Lankans currently working in Korea.