No compromise: Lanka

Friday, 14 March 2014 06:44 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Minister Samarasinghe says battle at UNHRC is a matter of principle Minister of Plantation Industries and Special Envoy of the President on Human Rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe has said Sri Lanka’s opposition to the Resolution being moved by the US, UK and a few other countries against Sri Lanka was a fight on a matter of principle and that Sri Lanka would not compromise.

Noting that what is happening to Sri Lanka today could happen to any other NAM country tomorrow, Minister Samarasinghe called upon all Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) member states to continue to show solidarity with Sri Lanka. The Minister said Sri Lanka was disappointed that it had been singled out through the resolutions at UNHCR despite its cooperation with the UN and the international community. Samarasinghe reiterated that the country had its own domestic mechanisms to reach reconciliation and has continued to show progress and constructive engagement. Minister Samarasinghe made these observations when he addressed the Permanent Representatives and delegates of the cross regional Non-Aligned Group in Geneva, on the sidelines of the 25th Session of the Human Rights Council yesterday. Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Ravinatha Aryasinha was also at the briefing. The Minister said Sri Lanka over the years was a country that had continued to engage with the international community and needed no Resolutions encouraging it to do so.

TNA hits back at GL

Sampanthan says Minister’s speech in Geneva was “tendentious” and not the truth The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has hit back against remarks made by External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris in Geneva last week, saying his comments about the Tamil party hindering the reconciliation process was not in accord with the true position. Issuing a statement, TNA Leader R. Sampanthan said that the latest Parliamentary Select Committee

(PSC) constituted by the Government had 31 members, 19 of whom were from the ruling alliance. Of the 12 members allocated to the Opposition, the TNA would have three or four members, the statement said. “In this background, there was no possibility of evolving a reasonable and acceptable political solution unless there was reasonable consensus between the main party in Government – the SLFP – and the TNA,” Sampanthan said. Minister Peiris told the UNHRC in Geneva last week while delivering the country’s National Statement that the TNA was hindering the reconciliation process by “persistently refusing to join the PSC” and said the terms of reference for the PSC were jointly formulated with the Tamil party. The TNA Leader said that bilateral talks with the Government and his party had broken down after the Government delegation failed to show up for three dates in January 2012. In his statement Sampanthan said that Cabinet-ranked Ministers had also announced the repeal of key provisions of the 13th Amendment while asking the TNA to participate in the PSC. “It must also be stated that though the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission has called upon the Government to come up with its own proposals for a political solution, the Government has up to date failed to do so, raising strong misgivings about the Government’s sincere commitment to an acceptable political solution,” Sampanthan said. “In the light of the above, the Minister’s explanation in regard to the non-evolution of an acceptable political solution is tendentious and not in accord with the true position,” the TNA Leader said. (DB)

He underlined the commitment of the Government of Sri Lanka to achieve comprehensive reconciliation. It was in order to achieve this objective, the Minister said, that Sri Lanka was requesting the cooperation of the international community, especially the western nations which have a large number of Sri Lankans domiciled in their countries, for their cooperation. Minister Samarasinghe, together with Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, is due to address the African Group as well as the Group of Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) next week.

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