SL should listen to Int’l community-US

23 March 2013 09:08 am Views - 4345

The United States yesterday stated that Sri Lanka should listen to the words of the international community.

“They (Sri Lanka) should implement the plan that they have never implemented. They should listen to the words of the international community.  . . We want to see the Sri Lankans take their own decisions. As we’ve said before, if those are not forthcoming, the international community will look at other steps we can take,” State Department Spokesperson, Victoria Nuland said during the daily press briefing yesterday.

Following is the transcript of yesterday’s briefing by Ms. Nuland:

Q: Madam, after this UN Security Council – Human Rights Council vote on Sri Lanka, what are the consequences or what do you think the Sri Lankan government should do now?

MS. NULAND: As you know, we welcome the passage of this new resolution; 24 other countries also voted for it. We call on the Government of Sri Lanka to fulfill its obligations to its own people. The resolution very clearly expresses the support of the international community for Sri Lanka, addressing its outstanding issues related to reconciliation and for meeting its obligations for accountability, which it has not yet done.

Q: Since this resolution has been going on for some time, and I’m sure there was ample warning and discussions and dialogue with Sri Lankan government or officials, either from the U.S. or UN or other international community, was there any time when – that Sri Lanka could have avoided this resolution against them?

MS. NULAND: We’ve talked about this for the past week here, Goyal, and I said that we had made clear, including when senior Sri Lankans had visited Washington, that if they didn’t take steps that they could – would see this kind of a resolution coming forward. That was about six months ago, and we didn’t see any progress.