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Saturday, 14 February 2015 01:43 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
US Secretary of State John Kerry with Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera
Washington (Reuters): US Secretary of State John Kerry met on Thursday (12) with the new Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka and pledged to help the country’s new Government recover from decades of civil war.
During his meeting in Washington with Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera, Kerry commended the plan for immediate political and economic reform draw up by new president Maithripala Sirisena.
“We’re particularly excited about the 100 day plan that the new Government has put forward,” Kerry told reporters at a briefing. “We wish them well in the days ahead and we’re going to talk today about President Sirisena’s thoughts on how to move Sri Lanka away from 30 years of war with the Tamils to a country that is inclusive and prosperous and peaceful.”
The new Government came to power after former President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s unexpected defeat in an election on 8 January. It is seeking to restructure billions of dollars in loans that were taken out by the previous regime for infrastructure projects as the country worked to rebuild after a lengthy civil war with Tamil rebels that ended in 2009.
Samaraweera said one of his Government’s new priorities will be to bridge the divisions between the different groups.
“We believe a new Sri Lanka based on the principles of unity in diversity – thediversity of cultures, diversity of ethnic groups and diversity of religions – willbe the cornerstone of the new Sri Lanka we are representing,” he said.
Samaraweera added that his Government also hopes to rebuild ties with the US.
“Relations have been somewhat strained the last few yearsand my job I feel is to ensure that we put back our relations to an irreversible state of excellence in the coming months and I look forward to working very closely with Secretary of State Kerry, and of course with the United States of America. For us, for the new administration, the United States of America is not a threat but a great opportunity.”
Among the things Sri Lanka is looking to the US for help with is in a UN investigation on human rights abuses. Last March, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted to look into reports of abuses during the conflict, saying the Sri Lankan Government had failed to investigate properly. The UN report is due out on 25March.
Sri Lanka’s new Government says it is planning a new local inquiry that would bring in some foreign experts if necessary. It has also invited the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit to discuss the issue.
Samaraweera said during a visit to Washington that the road map for the Government’s plan should be in place by 2 March and it was hoping to see the UN report delayed until after that.
At the briefing, Kerry did not say whether the US would support that effort.
