Political settlement is fundamental to reconciliation: Alistair Burt

Wednesday, 6 February 2013 00:28 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

There has been genuine progress in terms of building roads and returning IDPs home from welfare camps, but a political settlement is fundamental to reconciliation progress, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister, Alistair Burt said yesterday.

Burt who is the UK’s Parliamentary Undersecretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office visited Sri Lanka last week and engaged in a 45 minute Q&A session on Sri Lanka via the social networking site Twitter last evening.

Responding to a question by the Sri Lankan citizen journalism site, Groundviews, asking the UK Minister to define reconciliation progress, Burt replied: “Physical change such as roads or return from camps is genuine but not sufficient. Political settlement (is) fundamental.”

Minister Burt also said that the UK had raised impunity concerns in Sri Lanka at the UPR in Geneva, supported the UN Human Rights Council resolution in March and continued to press these issues with the Government in Sri Lanka. “Despite this, not enough progress,” he said in response to a question about what Britain was doing to “ensure Sri Lanka is committed to end impunity for war crimes.”

He said the UK would be supporting the US backed resolution in Geneva in March this year. When asked if the UK would ask the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) to discuss Sri Lanka and a possible venue change for the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting 2013, Burt responded that the UK was not a current member of CMAG.

He reiterated during the interactive session that while the UK expected the host of the summit to demonstrate strong Commonwealth values, the “location for CHOGM was Commonwealth’s choice.”