The Foreign Office summoned the British High Commissioner here on Monday, taking exception to his comments on the “disproportionately high military presence in north Sri Lanka”.
“Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris made it clear that the British envoy John Rankin's comments were unacceptable and constituted interference in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka,” said a senior official.
Mr. Rankin said: “We hope the military presence in the North and East can resemble the level of the military presence in other parts of the country, rather than the very large military presence we continue to have at the moment.” While comments by Western missions had been overlooked during the war years, Colombo is making a statement with the summoning of the British envoy.
SL is a sovereign country, not a British colony anymore!!!
What are you talking about
Couple of years ago Gotabaya round up all Tamils from Colombo and send then to north now he claims North is not just for Tamils.
Is SL a sovereign country? war is over by dirty work s but no peace in sri lanka. now Muslims in hot water mosques are attacked by monks under watch. Why these monks didn't get arrested for distubing the peace?
I see that there still are morons who worship the 'white sahibs'. Ghandhi seems to have failed.
Though it is none of his business, if Rankin means to say
demilitarise the north by sending the army to ‘barracks’ and assign
police to take over security issues, we have nothing against it. But
if Rankin means to say withdraw our forces from the north, then we
say ‘the north’ is a part of Sri Lanka. Anyway, the question then
is; whether the overall situation has reached the stage to send the
army to barracks yet.
See, on the one hand, BTF, TGTE and etc vow to pursue with their
long cherished Eelam project and their local agent TNA demands the
merger of north and east, and over 10,000 trained LTTE cadres have
just being resettled or on the loose, and buried arm catches are
unearthed almost daily. So, what is important is; ordinary people in
Sri Lanka accept it for they understand that unless armed forces are
vigilant, separatists could change prevailing peace to mayhem soon.
@Sachi, GL is not a joker, but he is a highly educated excellent statesman. British HC has no right to comment about the internal affairs of our country. They need not to worry about SL, but look for the mess they've made elsewhere like Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
SL is a sovereign country, not a British colony anymore!!!
Let's kick these scum out of the country. I don't mind friendly countries showing some 'tough love' from time to time. But we cannot tolerate our enemies interfering in our affairs.
Is Mr. Rankin an envoy representing the UK or an agent of the LTTE diaspora waiting for an opportunity to raise its head again? The economy of the UK is struggling, so do other economies of Europe and North America. Shouldn’t this guy be focusing on economic co-operation instead of wasting his time, effort, and the UK Government funds working for the LTTE?
Mr. Rankin should remember that he role is diplomacy, not being an agent of a questionable agenda.
British envoy John Rankin's comments were unacceptable. British policy is to support Tamil terorists in Sri Lanka and overseas.
Shame on you- John Rankin's, double standard policies.
Thx Hon Minister GL peris....Ya you are taking correct action. SriLanka is the country has freedom and dignity. We do not have policy without interfering others business.
The western power wants to dominate small countries and doing stupid ideas.
Srilanka is golden country compared to other countries even better freedom than India and UK, where these countries wants to distueb us.
We have a sinhala ancieant cultures and power.
I doubt the Rajapaksas have any intention of firing Pieris. They already lost Bogollagama - an excellent statesman - when he was voted out in the 2010 parliamentary elections.
Prof. G.L.Pieris seems to be a joker in President Rajapaksa's cabinet. He also seems to fear that his current position as the foreign minister is in jeopardy and his rivals are plotting to trip him.
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