Sri Lanka's missions in Europe met with the External Affairs Minister GL Peiris this week, to review progress and discuss "initiatives to counter campaigns against the country, using human rights and other issues as political tools", Colombo Page reports.

The meeting included Sri Lanka's ambassadors in France, Germany and Italy, as well as the country's Permanent Representative at the United Nations in Geneva, Ravinatha Aryasinha.

Making suggestions regarding a "coordinated strategy", the envoys reportedly gave "perspectives of special relevance to the countries in which they are serving".

Peiris urged envoys to "work closely with the Sri Lankan community in the respective countries" in order to the counter such campaigns.

Last week Aryasinha warned that the Tamil diaspora and foreign states were a threat to Sri Lanka.

While we have defeated the LTTE in Sri Lanka, the organization, its ideology and its operations are very much alive in a number of western countries. Immediately, this remains a challenge to speeding up the pace of reconciliation in Sri Lanka, and eventually, a potent danger to Sri Lanka as a rising nation,” Aryasinha said while speaking at the Sri Lankan Army’s Defence Seminar 2014.

“Even as most countries have acted with understanding and have respectfully shared concerns and been able to contribute to the processes of reconciliation in a tangible manner, unfortunately particularly a few Western countries fuelled by political motivations and electoral compulsions have continued to relentlessly pursue Sri Lanka," he added.

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