23 September 2023 12:00 am Views - 64
By Yohan Perera
Emphasizing the need for discretion in intelligence matters, Government MP Vajira Abeywardane stressed that achievements or failures of the intelligence authorities should not be debated in public no matter what.
Mr. Abeywardane who is also the Chairman of the United National Party (UNP) said no information remains available about the leading intelligence agencies such as India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) of the United States, Israel’s Mossad, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service(ASIS) .
He said the public representatives should act with a sense of responsibility when making references to the country’s intelligence services. He made these remarks in a statement to the House during the debate on Channel 4 allegations on Easter Sunday attack.
“We would have become a laughing stock of the foreign intelligence organizations,” he said.
He requested those concerned to look at how the Parliaments of the countries like Israel and Germany reacted in the face of terrorist attacks.
He stressed the need to combat terrorism in all its manifestations. He also recalled how Opposition MP Eran Wickramaratne, as a government member in 2019, discussed terrorist attacks that gripped the world since 2014 till then claiming the lives of over 2000 people.