Sri Lankan politicians are a surprising lot. At the height of the political crisis when the local economy collapsed and the country ran out of money, all political leaders appealed to the international community for help. And in goodwill many countries stepped forward to assist the nation, some with their own interests while others came forward in friendship.
While President Ranil Wickremesinghe to date maintains that the nation will maintain good relations with all countries and will take no sides, in an unexpected move it was surprising to see Foreign Minister Ali Sabry making a statement to the international media yesterday on the recently brewed Indo-Canada conflict which has no relevance to Sri Lanka whatsoever.
A statement which seems to have been made more in anger than being Sri Lanka’s official view, Sabry launched a scathing attack on Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for his allegations against India, which Sri Lanka has no relevance to.
Sabry said that some of the terrorists have found safe haven in Canada. “The Canadian PM has this way of just coming out with some outrageous allegations without any supporting proof. The same thing they did for Sri Lanka, a terrible, total lie about saying that Sri Lanka had a genocide. Everybody knows there was no genocide in our country. I saw yesterday he had gone and given a rousing welcome to somebody who has associated with the Nazis in the past during the Second World War. So this is questionable and we have dealt with it in the past. I am not surprised that sometimes PM Trudeau comes out with outrageous and substantiated allegations,” he said.
It is acceptable to see Sabry take on Trudeau when it comes to local affairs but what seems to be unwanted at this moment of time is to see Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister interfering in a conflict between India and Canada and further dampen relations over a matter which has no relevance to the nation.
It is also now to be seen if President Wickremesinghe also maintains the same view as Sabry considering that his Foreign Minister openly made this statement on a conflict which does not involve the state, or if he will get Sabry to straighten it by saying that Sri Lanka will not take sides with either India or Canada.
After all Sri Lanka has its own battles to cope with presently and can definitely do without interfering in conflicts which do not concern the government or the nation.
***SL has its own battles to cope with and can definitely do without interfering in conflicts which do not concern the government or the nation