Catherine West, the UK Minister for the Indo-Pacific, is in Jaffna yesterday 28-01-2025 as part of the new UK government’s first official visit to the island.
In a press release, the UK government said that West will emphasise the UK’s ongoing support for human rights, reconciliation, climate resilience and minority rights during her trip to the peninsula.
West met with Tamil politicians including Ilankai Tamil Arasu Katchi (ITAK) MP Sivagnanam Shritharan and Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF) leader Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam to discuss “reconciliation, development and inclusive representation.”
UK High Commissioner, Andrew Patrick, who accompanied West on her trip said that during the meeting, they “reaffirmed the UK’s support for reconciliation, and human rights and transitional justice in Sri Lanka.”
West has previously stated that Sri Lanka is a “human rights priority country” when she was questioned on the need to impose sanctions on Sri Lankan war criminals.
Prior to the UK general election in July 2024, West spoke to the Tamil Guardian at the first ever British Tamil hustings in which she stated that a Labour government would be putting international law at the heart of their foreign policy.
“Keir Starmer, as you are aware, has previously called on the British government to take a leading role in referring Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court,” West said.
To date, the UK government has not imposed any sanctions on Sri Lankan officials accused of human rights abuses.
The UK has remained the penholder of multiple resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council. The last resolution on Sri Lanka, passed in October 2024, extends the mandate of the Office of the High Commissioner for a further year so that it can continue collecting evidence of Sri Lanka’s human rights violations that may be used in future war crimes trials.
Sri Lanka has repeatedly rejected the resolutions, with Dissanayake’s government claiming that it will use domestic mechanisms to provide justice and accountability. Tamil victim survivors, including the families of the disappeared, have consistently expressed that stronger international action is needed to hold Sri Lanka accountable for the genocide in Mullivaikkal.
Ahead of her Jaffna visit, West met with Sri Lankan prime minister Harini Amarasuriya and Sri Lankan foreign minister Vijitha Herath in Colombo. West posted on X that she and Amarasuriya discussed how the UK and Sri Lanka can drive their “partnership forward together” despite the island’s long history of human rights abuses.