Karzai to attend defence seminar in Colombo

Wednesday, 26 August 2015 00:45 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Former President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, will attend the annual defence seminar which will be held next month.

The Ministry of Defence said that the final touches were now underway in preparation for ‘Defence Seminar – 2015′ which will be held from 1-2 September at the Colombo BUP_DFT_DFT-2-9 Galadari Hotel with the participation of more than 350 participants, including 62 foreign delegates and distinguished statesmen.

This year’s sessions, entitled ‘National Security in the Context of Emerging Global Threats’ are segmented into nine sessions under subthemes such as ‘Nature of Threats Affecting the National Security of a Nation’, ‘Emerging World Order’, ‘Terrorism and Challenges to National Security’ and ‘Non-military Threats to National Security’.

Karzai, Defence Secretary B.M.U.D. Basnayake and Army Commander Lieutenant General Chrishanthe De Silva are scheduled to deliver the keynote address and introductory remarks respectively during the opening sessions on the first day.

Christoper Coker, Professor of International Relations at London School of Economics, Dr. Matteo Legrenzi, Associate Professor of International Relations School of International Relations, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Yashvardhan Kumar Sinha High Commissioner of India to Sri Lanka, Dr. W. Lawrence S. Prabhakar, Professor of Strategic Studies and International Relations, Department of Political Science, Madras University, India, Maj Gen (Retd.) Syed Shakeel Hussain, High Commissioner of Pakistan to Sri Lanka, Lady Olga Maitland, Former President of the Defence and Security Forum (UK), Dr. Uttam Sinha, Former Indian representative, Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, Prof Rashed Uz Zaman, Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka, Yi Xianliang Ambassador of China to Sri Lanka and Dr. Chris Nonis, Former High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to UK are among speakers at the sessions.

‘Defence Seminar’, now a leading annual event in the Army calendar was initiated in 2011 as an intellectual interactive session to discuss geo-strategic security matters with 160 delegates from 60 nations. (Colombo Gazette)