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Diplomats need more time to relax travel ban
Colombo-based diplomatic mission heads have declared they want more time to lift travel bans imposed on their countries’ citizens visiting Sri Lanka.
This was in response to a request made by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe at a meeting with 43 heads of missions based in Colombo and two representatives of UN agencies.
The diplomats told the Prime Minister that they would be closely watching the ongoing security operations to arrest the persons responsible for the Easter Sunday bombings and those linked to them.
They said they would also watch the overall security situation and measures taken to contain the unrest as experienced last week and control the radicalisation of those with extremist ideas, a senior official from the Prime Minister’s office said.
The diplomats were given a presentation by an Army intelligence officer about the current security situation and the operations carried out to track down those responsible for organising the attacks.
He said that one of the terror group’s key members had fled to Saudi Arabia and they were trying to locate and arrest him with the help of the Saudi government.
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe during a two-hour long meeting urged the foreign diplomats to ask their governments to lift the travel ban in view of the improved security situation. He also asked them to consider the impact on the tourism industry as the country was trying to recover from the shock of the Easter Sunday attacks.
Mr Wickremesinghe told the diplomats that, among the measures the government was taking to prevent Sri Lankans from being drawn into extremists ideas were laws relating marriage, madrasas being monitored by the Education Ministry and making education compulsory upto grade 13.
Some of the countries said they would initially allow their official delegations due to visit Sri Lanka to go ahead with their plans in the coming months as a prelude to the lifting of the travel bans.
They said, as a second step, they would be able to relax the ban with a caution about the situation.
They said it was only thereafter they could consider lifting the ban.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has directed government officials to start carrying out campaigns in foreign countries to attract tourists when the season begins from August. The campaign would include advertisements and promotions.
In the aftermath of the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks, the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Japan, India and China were among the countries that issued travel advisories urging their citizens to either avoid non-essential travel to Sri Lanka or reconsider travel to the country.