Hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs

Speech by Hon. Rohitha Bogollagama, Minister of Foreign Affairs At the Inaugural Session of the NAM Ministerial Conference on behalf of Asian Group Tehran – 29 July ‘08 Mr. Chairman, It is my privilege today to ad ...

Counter Terrorism: Sri Lanka’s Experience

Mr Chairman
Excellencies
Ladies and Gentlemen

I am delighted to have this opportunity to address you at the Asian Study Centre here in Cairo and to share my thoughts on the challenges Sri Lanka faces today. Yours is a highly reputed institute with a distinguished history as a centre of scholarly excellence and discourse and I thank you Mr Chairman for your invitation and kind words of introduction.

Sri Lanka as many of you are aware is one of Asia’s oldest functioning democracies. From the time we gained independence in 1948, a system of Parliamentary democracy has firmly taken root. Presently elections are held based on a system of proportional representation that is accommodative of minority communities. Our electoral tradition is sustained by a vibrant multi-party system. Elections have been held without interruption since independence and different political parties that have come to power have striven to introduce political and economic policies that have demonstrated sensitivity to the aspirations of our people.  Read More

Issuing a new year message, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said in this new year ’We need to focus on a more people centred diplomacy by connecting with people at all levels. We will need to be proactive in diplomacy, friends to all, and enemies to none and based on our traditional non-aligned value based approach’. The Minister said the Ministry had successfully faced numerous challenges during the year 2007 and in the year 2008, he sees a further increase of such challenges. The Minister also said that he is confident that the Foreign Service is well groomed and capable of achieving Sri Lanka’s foreign policy objectives.

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