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Kadir to visit China, India
Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar becomes the first cabinet member of the new UFPA government to leave Sri Lanka - availing himself of the first of four overseas trips permitted to him for the year - when he visits China on official business next week.

Mr. Kadirgamar is also due to visit India thereafter. He has sought interviews with Indian political leaders who are presently in the midst of a general election of their own.

The fact that Mr. Kadirgamar has picked on the two Asian giants for his first overseas visits - only a fortnight after being sworn-in - indicates the significance the minister attaches to relations with those two countries. No official statement has, however, been released so far from the Foreign Office on the visits.

Mr. Kadirgamar is on record saying that India should play a more active role in Sri Lanka's national question, a statement later clarified by Indian High Commissioner Nirupam Sen saying it meant only that India would be more actively engaged in the process for a negotiated settlement in the country.

China is one of Sri Lanka's main suppliers of military hardware, but Mr. Kadirgamar's visit is in connection with a UN - ESCAP (Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific) meeting of Foreign Ministers in Shanghai.

Under a Presidential Code of Conduct for cabinet ministers, each of the 35 ministers of the new UFPA government, without exception, is permitted only four overseas visits a year.
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