EU might not revoke Sri Lanka trade boon - GL

Sri Lankacould still avoid the withdrawal of European Union trade concessions over its human rights record following two rounds of talks with Brussels, the Asian country’s foreign minister said on Monday.

 

 

The EU is due to cancel in August a trade preference amounting to $150 million annually that helps Sri Lanka’s top export, garments, after finding the country failed to adhere to a number of rights conventions required under the scheme.

 

 

Rights groups have said the Sri Lankan government should be investigated for potential war crimes at the end of a quarter-century war against separatist Tamil guerrillas a year ago. Colombo has denied the allegations and rejected charges that tens of thousands of civilians died.

 

 

External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris told Reuters in an interview that a team of Sri Lankan officials had made two trips to Brussels, the second of them at the end of last week, to discuss the trade preference and Sri Lanka’s rights record.

 

 

“It’s an ongoing discussion,” he said. “There’s no final decision and it is still possible that the parties will be able to agree on a set of measures to be implemented to prevent the withdrawal of these trade concessions later this year.”

 

 

No date for further talks had been set, but Colombo would be in touch with the EU, he said. “If they feel that any further clarification is necessary ... we would certainly not be averse to sending a team ... to continue talks.”

 

 

Peiris said EU officials had praised Sri Lanka for relaxing wartime emergency rules earlier this month and for resettling in their home areas most of the almost 300,000 people who fled as the government moved in to crush the Tamil Tiger fighters.

 

 

NEW DEVELOPMENT

 

 

This month, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa named an eight-person “commission on lessons learned and reconciliation” to look into the last seven years of the war, a move welcomed by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.

 

 

Peiris said that because the appointment of the commission, the United Nations should drop a plan announced by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in March to set up a panel to advise him on “accountability issues” in Sri Lanka. Ban has not so far named the members of the panel.

 

 

“The situation has been transformed by this new development,” Peiris said, arguing that Sri Lankans would see the U.N. panel as foreign intervention.

 

 

Ban “must recognize the current reality of the situation on the ground in Sri Lankaand not pursue what he had earlier proposed,” he added.

 

 

Ban told reporters shortly before he was to meet Peiris he was “still working on” setting up the panel and suggested one of its tasks would be to assess the Sri Lankan commission.

 

 

“The group of experts will have to advise me (on) the basic character and the role of this commission. This is what I have in my mind,” the U.N. chief said.

 

 

Peiris dismissed charges that past Sri Lankan commissions of inquiry had achieved little. “Of course it has teeth,” he said of the new commission, saying its mandate gave it power to determine whether individuals should be held responsible.

 

 

Peiris said he would travel to Washingtonon Tuesday to meet U.S.government officials. He also said he expected U.N. political chief Lynn Pascoe to visit Sri Lankain the next two to three weeks.

^Reuters