UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon has called for a political solution to the underlying factors of Sri Lanka’s past conflict.The Secretary-General said this at a meeting with the Minister for External Affairs G. L. Peiris yesterday, the UN office in New York said.The press statement said that both the UN Chief and Minister Peiris exchanged views on the post-conflict situation in the Asian nation and cooperation with the United Nations.Ban noted the Sri Lankan Government’s latest efforts to implement the recommendations of its Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, as well as the steady progress and remaining tasks on resettlement efforts in the country’s north.“He also emphasised the need to find a political solution without further delay to the underlying factors of the country’s past conflict,” the UN office said.Earlier in the day Minister Peiris said that the recent tendency to selectively and arbitrarily intervene in the internal affairs of states flies in the face of the UN Charter and dilutes the confidence so carefully nurtured in the UN system.Peiris told the UN General Assembly that Sri Lanka believes that in the settlement of international disputes, action must be based on the fundamental principle of sovereign equality of states, a principle firmly enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations.He also said that Sri Lanka, a founding member of the NAM, firmly upholds the tenets of peaceful co-existence, mutual respect for each’ others’ sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-interference in the internal affairs of other states, and equality and mutual benefit.