New and hopeful time for relations between United States and Sri Lanka: Envoy

The United States Embassy is committed to working with the people and Government of Sri Lanka to achieve lasting peace and inter-communal harmony based on meaningful reconciliation.

Deputy Chief of Mission Robert B. Hilton speaking at an event in Jaffna to mark the 200th Anniversary of the American Ceylon Mission said this is a new and hopeful time for relations between the United States and Sri Lanka.

The envoy said reconciliation is a difficult task but as Secretary of State John Kerry said in Colombo last May, ‘true peace is more than the absence of war’ and, especially after a civil conflict, requires policies that foster reconciliation, not resentment.

“It demands that all citizens of the nation be treated with equal respect and equal rights, and that no one be made to feel excluded or subjugated. It calls for a military that projects its power outward to protect its people, not inward to police them. It necessitates, as America’s great President Abraham Lincoln said, binding up the nation’s wounds, with malice towards none and with charity towards all,” Hilton quoting Secretary John Kerry said.

Speaking of the contributions made by the missionaries to Sri Lanka, the DCM said today’s occasion is a celebration of the people-to- people ties that are the strong foundation of the relationship between the United States and so many countries, including Sri Lanka.

The DCM expressed hope that the occasion is also a celebration for many people of the north, regardless of religion, who have benefited from the contributions missionaries made in areas such as education and healthcare.