Will eradicate terrorism with int’l assistance: PM

Making a special statement in parliament, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe a short while ago said the government would eradicate terrorism with the assistance offered by the international community.

He said this in a special statement he made in Parliament and added that the country had been offered assistance by many countries and international organisations including the United Nations to combat terrorism.

The Prime Minister said US President Donald Trump, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Shinso Abey, Foreign Minister of Pakistan and leaders of Sweden, Russia and many other countries had telephoned him and pledged their support to Sri Lanka.

“We should seize this opportunity use their assistance to eradicate terrorism,” he said. “Sri Lanka has entered the map of global terrorism with the ruthless attacks on Sunday. Therefore we have to consider those who launched the attack as global terrorists and it is time brought about structural changes to face this terror situation."

The Prime Minister said this terrorism was different to the terrorism which Sri Lanka faced for 30 years and pointed out that it would have been impossible to defeat local terrorists if the ground battles were not won.

“What happened during the 30-year war was a mixture of ground battles and guerrilla warfare. We are in a similar situation like Britain where that country is facing a different conflict now as a result of global terrorism in the aftermath of wars like the one we faced,” he said.

The Prime Minister said the UN code of conduct in creating a world free of terrorism would be implemented to crack down on this global terrorist group in Sri Lanka and underscored a host of steps that would be carried out such as arresting terrorists, preempting attacks, use of technology and confronting the threats posed by the terrorists in dealing with the issue.

He said Sri Lanka was facing global terrorism today it was not an issue to do with ethnic or religious extremists.

The Prime Minister stressed that one of the main objectives of these terrorists was to destabilize the county’s economy which was gradually picking up.

“The Police and the Security Forces have been instructed to arrest the brains behind the suicide bombers. We request all ethnic and religious groups to unitedly support the government to eradicate this manifestation of global terrorism from the country,” he said.

The Prime Minister stressed that a majority of Muslims were against terrorism and extremism and pointed out that only a few Tamils who supported the LTTE initially but that situation changed with the July 1983 riots. (Yohan Perera & Ajith Siriwardana)