The United Nations Security Council is to get informal briefings tomorrow from two European Foreign Ministers who visited Colombo last week.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner are scheduled to speak at an informal session of the Security Council tomorrow afternoon.
Reports from the UN say the two foreign ministers are to give their views on talks with Sri Lanka Government leaders. Both Mr. Miliband and Mr. Kouchner failed during talks to persuade the Government to agree to an extended ceasefire. After the informal briefings, the duo, together with their colleague from Austria are to address a news conference.
Russia’s UN envoy, the new president of the UN Security Council, has assured his country’s fullest support to Sri Lanka in the ongoing military campaign against Tiger guerrillas. It was re-iterated last Wednesday when Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke with his Sri Lankan counterpart Rohita Bogollagama.
The telephone conversation followed a call to Moscow by Mr. Bogollagama to brief Russia on the current developments in the Wanni.
Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is likely to visit Sri Lanka later this month following an invitation from President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
However, until yesterday, the government had not got an official response from the Secretary General’s office to the invitation.
President Rajapaksa during a telephone conversation on Thursday invited the UN chief to visit Sri Lanka for a first-hand assessment of the situation in camps where internally-displaced people are sheltered.
The move was also aimed at responding to charges by various countries and human rights groups that the Sri Lankan government was ill-treating the IDPs and conducting the war in a way that was harmful to civilians still trapped in the fighting.
Meanwhile, reports from New York suggest that opinion in the UN is divided on whether Mr. Ban should make the trip immediately or wait until the dust settles -- an apparent reference to a final assault by the Sri Lankan security forces on the remaining LTTE base.
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