The Sri Lankan government is due to open an embassy in Erbil announced the head of the Kurdistan Region's Department of Foreign Relations (DFR) this week. Falah Mustafa said that his government had approved requests from Sri Lanka, as well as Ukraine, to open honorary consulates in the Kurdistan region. “The DFR warmly welcomes the decision made by Ukraine and Sri Lanka to open offices in the Kurdistan Region. It is another step toward strengthening relations with both countries in terms of economy, trade, and culture,” said Mr Mustafa. A date for the opening of the consulate has not yet been...
Police in Sri Lankan have launched an official investigation following a complaint that women taking part in a procession in the South were dressed in sarees “similar to the Buddhist flag”. The Island reports that a group of women at the Hikkaduwa Seenigama Devale had been dressed in the sarees, reportedly leading to “protests from some lay persons”. Following a complaint from Buddhist monk Angulugalle Siri Jinanda of the Buddhist Information Centre, Sri Lankan police have launched an official investigation. Sri Lankan police have frequently arrested people, locals and tourists alike, for...
The Acting Assistant Secretary of State of the US Alice Wells met with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Thursday, where the two reportedly discussed “democratic reforms and reconciliation process” on the island.
A senior former military official has dismissed war crimes accusations against former army commander Jagath Jayasuriya, who fled Brazil on Sunday after lawsuits were filed against him. Rtd Major General Kamal Gunaratna, former commander of the 53rd Division which is also thought to have committed mass atrocities during the armed conflict, said the Tamil diaspora orchestrated the charges. The Major General said that Jayasuriya did not give orders to the military during the last phase of the conflict, Hirunews reports. Gunaratna last year published a book, titled "Road to Nandikadal", in which...
The Acting Assistant Secretary of State of the US, Alice Wells and the US ambassador to Sri Lanka remembered the tens of thousands of enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka at an event in Colombo on Tuesday, held to mark International Day of the Disappeared. "Today on Int. Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearances we honor #DisappearedSL families searching for answers in SL w @State_SCA A/AS Wells," Mr Keshap tweeted.
The British Tamils Forum and the US Tamil Political Action Council marked International Day of the Disappeared on Tuesday and called on Sri Lanka to operationalise the Office of Missing Persons. "Tens of thousands of Tamils have been disappeared in Sri Lanka, primarily at the hands of the state’s security forces and allied paramilitaries. According to Amnesty International, Sri Lanka has a backlog of 60,000 to 100,000 cases of enforced disappearance from all communities since the late 1980s, approximately 20,000 of which are Sinhalese according to Presidential Commissions and the rest are...
Amid military intelligence surveillance, Tamil families of the disappeared marched across the North-East to mark the International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance. Demonstrations took place across Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Mannar, Mullaithivu, Vavuniya and Jaffna.
A delegation of the US military "saluted Sri Lanka’s war heroes" during a ceremony at Sri Lanka’s National War Heroes monument "for the first time in recent history", according to the army.lk website.
A former Sri Lankan general who fled from his post as ambassador to Brazil this week should be referred to the International Criminal Court at The Hague said the chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tamils Paul Scully. Speaking on the case of Major General Jagath Jaysuriya, Sri Lanka’s ambassador to Brazil who fled from South America following a law suit filed against him by human rights organisations, Mr Scully said, “it is not enough to hide behind diplomatic immunity or run away at the first sign of legal challenge”. “Interpol should issue a red notice for General Jayasuriya’s...
Officials from the Sri Lankan military have denied war crimes charges against a former military commander who was appointed as the government’s ambassador to Brazil and fled from South America earlier this week. Speaking after General Jagath Jayasuriya arrived back in Colombo, Sri Lanka's military spokesman Roshan Seneviratne denied all reports of war crimes. "These allegations keep coming up from time to time, but there is no truth in them," said Mr Seneviratne. Major General Kamal Gunarathna, the now retired commander of the 53 Division during the final stages of the island’s armed conflict...