by Zacki Jabbar
The United States of America says it wants to partner with the Sri Lankan military while assisting the government in drafting a new constitution and meeting commitments it had made to the United Nations Human Rights Council with regard to accountability issues.
An UN Human Rights Council endorsed resolution has called for the establishment of an independent domestic mechanism to probe allegations of war crimes against the previous Rajapaksa government and LTTE especially during the last stages of the near three decade war, which ended on May 19 , 2009.
The U.S. Ambassador Atul Keshap addressing a reception on board the ship USS New Orleans which docked in at the Colombo Port for a three day goodwill visit last week, said that they were welcoming new staff into the American embassy here to work on development programs, human rights cooperation, rule of law, justice, demining and many different things.
“We are working to strengthen our relationship with all of the different facets of the Sri Lankan government, including the armed forces, because we believe that a professional military is essential to the development and success of any viable democracy”, he noted.
He added that they wanted to partner with the security forces and move forward on the very important issues that had attracted the attention of Sri Lankans which encompassed development of a new Constitution and cooperating with the international community to address commitments with regard to accountability issues made in September of last year.
The Ambassador said that the U.S. would work with the Sri Lankan people, their government, military and bureaucracy in achieving the goals that they had set for themselves by electing a new President on January 8, 2015 and affirming it at the parliamentary election in August the same year.
During their stay the crew of USS New Orleans engaged in humanitarian and disaster relief exercises and also exchanged views on best practices with the military.