Sri Lanka to formally respond to U.S. resolution

The U.S. government said it had alerted the government last year on the possibility of taking action on Sri Lanka if there was no progress in human rights related issues.
Sri Lanka is to formally respond to a new U.S. resolution on Sri Lanka tabled at the United Nations Human Rights Council, an External Affairs Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.

 Spokesman Rodney Perera said that the government was studying the document and will respond to it when it is discussed at the Council.

The United States on Monday tabled the final version of the resolution on Sri Lanka at the 22nd session of the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, with co-sponsors such as Austria, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway and Britain.

In a toned down document as compared to the previous drafts, the resolution requests the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, with input from relevant special procedures mandate holders, as appropriate, to present an oral update to the Human Rights Council at its 24th session, and a comprehensive report followed by a discussion at the 25th session, on the implementation of the present resolution.

The U.S. government said it had alerted the government last year on the possibility of taking action on Sri Lanka if there was no progress in human rights related issues.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, on Monday, said that Sri Lanka had been alerted last year by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she met Sri Lanka's External Affairs Minister G.L Peiris.

Nuland said that the United States is working with several governments on the resolution on Sri Lanka submitted at the UN Human Rights Council.

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