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Addressing media following his meeting with President Mahinda Rajapaksa this morning, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake said he had a very productive series of meetings with the President, External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris, and members of civil society, business community and opposition.
Welcoming the defeat of LTTE, Blake said achieving reconciliation is a key element of peace and one part of achieving reconciliation will be to finish resettling all internally displaced personas as soon as possible.
"Another key part of reconciliation is to ensure accountability for past wrongs. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had recently told External Affairs minister G.L Peiris that Sri Lanka's Lessons learnt and reconciliation commission holds promise and we hope and expect it will fulfill that promise. A last pillar of reconciliation will be to advance democracy and human rights. Minister Peiris affirmed during his visit to Washington that Sri Lanka wants to revive and strengthen its institutions of democracy," Blake said.
"The US will continue to be Sri Lanka's partner in all of these endeavors," he asserted.
Blake said that he discussed the process of greater power sharing and encouraged the President to engage Tamil people in the process and continue to have a dialogue with them.
Blake said that progress in implementing greater power sharing with the provinces, implementing the 17th amendment to empower independent commissions such as the human rights, police and bribery commissions and efforts to safeguard media freedom will all be important steps in ensuring an important step of peace and prosperity for all Sri Lankans.
The former Ambassador to Sri Lanka said that President Rajapaksa understands the need for power sharing and is moving forward.
However, Sri Lanka needs to do more for greater reconciliation, greater democracy, and human rights, the Assistant Secretary added.
Responding to the queries on the tussle between Sri Lanka and the United Nations, Blake said he is pleased to see that the Resident Coordinator Neil Buhne is back in the country and tension reducing.
Blake said there was some misunderstanding on the role of the UN panel appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to advice him on Sri Lanka.
"The US believes the UN panel can play an important advisory role with Sri Lanka's commission. The panel is only an advisory panel and does not have an investigatory or judicial role of any kind," he said.
"UN has greater experience in many parts of the world with such conditions and that experience could benefit Sri Lanka's Commission", he added.
Addressing the issue of US trade Office's decision to review GSP trade benefits to Sri Lanka Blake said that it is important to make a distinction on the US GSP process and the EU GSP plus process.
He reiterated that the GSP benefits will remain in effect during the review process and said that the review is a collaborative process with the Sri Lankan business community to ensure their decision makers have a opportunity to visit wide range of businesses in the country to get a first hand look before making any decisions.
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