Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa instructed Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama to immediately rush to Pakistan on Tuesday, hours after the terrorist atack on Sri Lankan cricket team which left six cricketers injured.
"All of the displaced people have been registered and therefore the diaspora should be able to contact their relatives through relevant Sri Lankan authorities and overseas missions of Sri Lanka," Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said on Thursday.
During the two-day visit, Mukherjee will meet President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama and discuss the latest situation in the northern part of the island nation, sources said. Mukherjee is expected to impress upon Rajapaksa government the need for finding a political solution to the ethnic problem to ensure lasting peace.
Sri Lankan Government said it would challenge the candidature of Sarath Fonseka, the main opposition nominee who could not vote as he was not a registered voter.
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna met his Sri Lankan counterpart Rohitha Bogollagama in New York and discussed the issue of the resettlement of over 280,000 IDPs in the island nation. "The discussion covered the settlement of displaced persons primarily," Krishna said, adding, "They have told us that the process of de-mining is going on. Simultaneously the resettlement also is being done." Colombo has come under strong international criticism for human rights violations
Although Afghanistan will be formally inducted as the eighth member of SAARC on Tuesday, Afghan Foreign Minister Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta also attended the meet.
Buoyed by the string of recent military success against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Sri Lanka has once again asked the beleaguered rebels to surrender to facilitate the safe exit of the Tamil civilians.
In an apparent move to placate Sri Lanka's anger over Hillary Clinton's remarks that "rape" was used as a weapon in the war against the LTTE, the US has said it had no recent evidence of women being sexually assaulted while in custody in the country.
"Sri Lanka in its battle against terrorism has set examples and its successes has given other democracies hope that terrorism can be fought and overcome," Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said.
When he wants the attention of New Delhi, the Sri Lankan president or his administration dials Beijing and Islamabad and vice versa. So petrified is New Delhi at the prospect of Beijing or Islamabad consolidating its grip on the island nation that in the last two years India has given in to every whim and fancy of the Rajapaksa government.
Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama says that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has lost out in terms of its causes as support for the terrorist outfit has been steadily decreasing both at home and abroad. The foreign minister also said that thanks to joint patrol by the Indian and Sri Lankan governments in mid-seas the traditional arms-smuggling by the outfit has been coming down.
Sri Lanka on Monday insisted that India is not involved in the recent attack on its cricket team in Lahore, but did not rule out the possibility of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam link to the audacious gun and grenade strike that left seven players injured and eight people dead.
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