Fox Sri Lanka trip cancelled amid rumours of row with Hague

By politics.co.uk staff

The defence secretary has cancelled a trip to Sri Lanka amid questions over its human rights record while battling Tamil groups last year.

The news comes after an alleged row between Liam Fox and the Foreign Office over the defence secretary’s planned visit.

Dr. Fox was planning to make the visit in a personal capacity to speak at a memorial lecture in honour of one of the country’s former foreign ministers.

According to a statement the trip was cancelled “due to an extension to his scheduled official visit to the Gulf”.

But the Guardian suggested that foreign secretary William Hague was ‘appalled’ about the trip because of the questions remaining over the country’s human rights record and alleged war crimes.

Sri Lankan issues arouse passionate responses from human rights groups after the civil war which saw the Tamil Tigers defeated by government forces.

But the conduct of that war has been heavily criticised internationally, cooling relations between London and Colombo.

Reports of widespread human rights abuses led to thousands of Tamil demonstrators protesting in Parliament Square.

Labour’s Yvette Cooper highlighted the alleged tensions, saying: “William Hague must be spitting mad. This is a sensitive area of foreign policy. Who is in charge of policy on Sri Lanka, the foreign secretary or the defence secretary?

“Every member of the British government should be pressing consistently for the independent war crimes investigation Sri Lanka needs.”

According to Dr. Fox’s statement, the trip has been postponed rather than cancelled entirely. It continued: “He intends to carry out an official visit to Sri Lanka next year during which he proposes to fulfil the speaking engagement that he had planned.”

The news comes as Wikileaks cable prompted fresh allegations about government complicity with paramilitary groups in last year’s offences.

Liam Fox to be provided necessary protocol assistance – Govt.

The Ministry of External Affairs issuing a statement on the visit of Dr. Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom said, ‘despite the private nature of the visit, due to the status of the visitor and the important nature of the Oration, the Ministry in association with the other concerned agencies of Government had made all arrangements to provide the necessary protocol assistance and facilitation to Dr. Fox during his planned stay in Sri Lanka’.

‘These same arrangements will be afforded, in the event of the Foundation rescheduling the Oration by Dr. Fox for a future date’, the Ministry added.

Following is the statement:

A series of queries have been posed to the Ministry of External Affairs concerning reports that the Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom, Dr. Liam Fox will now not be travelling to Sri Lanka, to deliver on 18 December the Lakshman Kadirgamar Memorial Oration.

The Ministry wishes to observe in this regard, that the invitation to deliver the Oration was extended by the Lakshman Kadirgamar Foundation. Despite the private nature of the visit, due to the status of the visitor and the important nature of the Oration, the Ministry in association with the other concerned agencies of Government had made all arrangements to provide the necessary protocol assistance and facilitation to Dr. Fox during his planned stay in Sri Lanka.

These same arrangements will be afforded, in the event of the Foundation rescheduling the Oration by Dr. Fox for a future date.