Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena claimed his government had “defused” the issue of accountability for war crimes since coming in to power and avoided an international criminal tribunal.
Speaking to the Daily Mirror, Mr Sirisena reiterated his opposition to foreign judges or lawyers participating in an accountability mechanism and went on to state that it “is premature to talk about a domestic inquiry now”.
“If there was no regime change in 2015, the global community, the US and EU would have imposed trade embargoes against Sri Lanka and political and military leaders would have taken before International Criminal Court for war crimes,” Mr Sirisena stated.
“The Yahapalana Government was able to defuse that negative impact on Sri Lanka and no country or international agency now talk about Sri Lanka’s war crimes and electric chair.”
“The entire international community is friendly and respects Sri Lanka now,” he added.
Mr Sirisena pointed specifically to the European Union and the reinstatement of the GSP+ trade tariff
“As a result of this positive global atmosphere, Sri Lanka has been able to regain GSP+ and remove fish export ban to the EU,” he said.
