Sri Lanka’s president will ask the United Nations not pursue accountability for war crimes committed by Sri Lankan troops and will instead call on the Human Rights Council to “remove these charges”.
Speaking to reporters in Colombo last week, Maithripala Sirisena said that he "will also make a written request to the Human Rights Council to settle the allegations against our troops".
"I want to tell them to remove these charges,” he said. “We can amicably resolve this issue."
Sirisena went on to state he expected "concessions" from the UN Human Rights Council, following Sri Lanka’s failure in fully implementing a 2015 Human Rights Council resolution, that it co-sponsored.
The resolution called for an international accountability mechanism to be set up which included foreign judges and prosecutors. However, Sirisena and other senior Sri Lankan leaders have repeatedly spoken out against the resolution and vowed to protest Sri Lankan troops from charges of war crimes.
Tens of thousands of Tamils were killed by the Sri Lankan military as it launched a massive military offensive which ended in 2009. Several UN reports have since concluded that widespread human rights violations were committed including the shelling of hospitals, sexual violence and the execution of surrendering Tamils
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