Opposition UNP Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe is due to meet UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday in New York, the Secretary General's office said on Friday.
Mr. Wickremesinghe is on a visit to the United States. In Washington he took part in the International Democratic Union (IDU) Executive Committee meetings. He is a Vice Chairman of the IDU and Chairman of the Asia-Pacific region. Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard presided at the meeting. The US Republican Party is the host for this union of right-wing conservative parties worldwide.
The IDU comprises governing parties from Georgia, Mongolia, Austria, Finland, Germany, Canada, UK and Sweden. They are in the opposition in the US, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru, Macedonia, Guatamala, Brazil, Mozambique, Australia and, Norway.
During his visit Mr. Wickremesinghe met several US Republican Party stalwarts including Presidential candidate Senator John McCain, and senior officers from the White House, National Security Council, the State Department, the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs and Senate Foreign Relations Committees.
The Sri Lanka embassy in Washington and the Permanent Mission in New York provided transport and hosted Mr. Wickremesinghe during his visits to these cities.
The controversial report of the Experts Panel appointed by Secretary General Ban-Ki moon on allegations of human rights violations in Sri Lanka during the last stages of the war against the LTTE is expected to be discussed during Tuesday's talks.
A spokesman for Mr. Wickremesinghe said the opposition leader during his talks with Mr. Ban would reiterate his position on the panel report which he had taken up in parliament.
In his parliament speech, Mr. Wickremesinghe had asked the international community to give the Sri Lankan government time to complete its own investigations into allegations of human rights violations . |
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