SL and Russia coordinating closely in UNHRC: Russia

The delegations of Sri Lanka and Russia are ‘comparing their notes and coordinating closely in their efforts in UNESCO and in the UNHRC,’ the visiting Foreign Affairs Minister of Russia, Sergey Lavrov said yesterday.

Speaking at a joint news briefing with his Sri Lankan counterpart Dinesh Gunawardane in Colombo, Minister Lavrov said Russia was thankful for Sri Lanka in supporting for their initiatives in the UN General Assembly. The Russian Minister commented on the security relations of the two countries and said Russia has supplied and continue to supply arms and equipment to the Sri Lanka Army so that it can effectively fight off its enemies and improve its defence capacity.

“We paid extra attention during the meetings to revitalize counter-terrorism efforts. We also express our support to Sri Lankan leadership as it tries to identify and hold accountable the mastermind of horrible attack that took place last April,” he said.

He said Minister Gunawardane briefed him extensively on the efforts put together by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to bring the situation in the country back to normal.

“In strict compliance with the Constitution and respect to national accordance, we fully support those measures,” he said.

He said one of the features that make Russia and Sri Lanka similar was that both nations push for greater democratisation of inter-state relations, respecting civilisation and cultural diversity of the world.

“In this context, BRICS (an association of five major emerging national economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) has an important role to play and Russia presides over the organisation this year. We will also strengthen our cooperation through the Non-Aligned Movement where Russia is an observer and Sri Lanka is a founding father,” he said. (Lahiru Pothmulla)