Liam Fox, the UK defence secretary, is planning to defy the
Foreign Office by making a personal visit to Sri Lanka this weekend to deliver a
speech in honour of a former foreign minister, the Guardian UK reports.
The Foreign Office is debating whether to appeal to Downing
Street to prevent Fox from visiting Sri Lanka, whose government is
facing allegations of war crimes during its final assault on the Tamil Tigers
last year.
The row erupted after Fox, who has personal links to Sri Lankafrom his time as a Foreign Office minister in the 1990s and who has visited the
country twice in the last 13 months, accepted an invitation to deliver the
Lakshman Kadirgamar memorial lecture. The invitation was issued by the widow of
the late foreign minister, who was murdered by a Tamil Tiger sniper in 2005.
Whitehallsources said that William Hague, the foreign secretary, is annoyed by Fox’s
decision. One Whitehallsource said: “It is dreadful. William is appalled. It will take No 10 to haul
him in.” Britain wants to
maintain pressure on Colomboin light of questions about its assault on the Tamil Tigers.
A spokesman for Fox said last night that none of the cost of
the trip to Colombowould be paid for by the Sri Lankan government. “He will be paying for the
hotel himself and he will be paying for the flight. The speech is about
international security. It’s nothing to do with anything that’s going on in Sri Lanka.”
Fox is understood to have discussed the trip with the
Foreign Office. Hague is aware of the visit.
Pressure on Fox increased this week when the shadow foreign
secretary, Yvette Cooper, said in the Commons: “[Hague] will know [Fox] will be
meeting the Sri Lankan government … next week. Will he then take the message as
a member of the UKgovernment … about the importance of a credible investigation into alleged war
crimes, and will he also press for an international element to the
investigation?”
According to the latest register of members’ interests, Fox
has declared that he has been paid for two recent flights and stays to Sri Lanka.
The first was for a trip between 14 and 19 November 2009,
recorded to have been worth £3,000. The donor was recorded as the Sri Lanka
Development Trust, with an address in Edinburgh.
The purpose of the visit was said to be “to attend the Sri
Lanka Freedom Party national convention and for meetings with the president of Sri Lankaand the foreign minister”, the Guardian reports.
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