AFP | Khaleej Times
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Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Gamini Lakshman Peiris held 45-minute talks here with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who kept up pressure on Colombo to probe alleged war crimes, the State Department said.
Peiris “presented a very serious and comprehensive approach” to implementing a reconciliation panel’s work and his government’s “plans to make it more public and accessible,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
Clinton “encouraged a really transparent, open, public process” not only on implementing the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendations but also in tackling allegations of war crimes, Nuland told reporters.
Nuland said Clinton talked generally about the issue of “accountability” for war crimes while senior US diplomats Robert Blake and Michael Posner went into the details later with the Sri Lankan delegation.
In March the UN Human Rights Council passed a US-backed resolution urging Sri Lanka to conduct a credible investigation into alleged war crimes during its last battle against Tamil Tiger separatists in 2009.
Sri Lankan authorities rejected the resolution, saying the country must be given time to complete its own domestic investigations without interference from foreign powers.
Human rights groups say up to 40,000 civilians died in the final months of Sri Lanka’s military campaign to crush the Tamil Tigers, who waged a bloody decades-long campaign for a separate homeland for minority Tamils.
The UN estimates some 100,000 people died during Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict between 1972 and 2009.
Clinton also “stressed the importance... of demilitarizing the north, getting to the provincial elections in the north, protection of human rights, including protection of the press,” Nuland said.
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