President meets top commonwealth official, diaspora group amid opposition criticism

ECONOMYNEXT –Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe met the Commonwealth Secretary General and a group of Sri Lankan expats even as his visit to the UK to attend Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral was questioned in the island nation’s parliament.A statement from the president’s media division (PMD) said on Tuesday September 20 that President Wickremesinghe met Commonwealth Secretary General Patricia Scotland that afternoon, a day after he met a Sri Lankan diaspora group.

Wickremesinghe also met King Charles III on Sunday September 18.The PMD wasn’t forthcoming with details on the meeting with the commonwealth secretary, but a statement said Wickremesinghe’s meeting with the diaspora group was attended by businessmen, investors and professionals of Sri Lankan origin, whom he had invited to invest in the country.Sri Lanka is going through a crippling currency crisis, the worst in the history of the country’s central bank.

“As I am meeting the Commonwealth Secretary-General tomorrow (20), we were talking amongst ourselves how we are going to function. We want the Commonwealth to be strong, to go ahead. The UK has been a friend and ally for a long time. We have been under the rule of UK and we have been an independent country having relations with UK (sp),” an official transcript of a speech he had made at the meeting said.

“It goes back a long time. There are times we have agreed with the UK and there are times we have disagreed with the UK. So those are bonds that we have, whether it be Labour or Conservative or coalition and we want to maintain those relations,” he said.

Just a week prior, on September 12, the UK handed over a new draft resolution to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that analysts say is the toughest resolution on Sri Lanka yet.However, political analysts say President Wickremesinghe has been looking to improve Sri Lanka’s relations with the West, as the country finds itself between the proverbial rock and a hard place vis-à-vis China and India.

“It’s not a secret that we are all broke as a country. We have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps. We have already started discussions with the [International Monetary Fund] and staff level agreement is there. We have to talk to India, China and Japan and to the private creditors. While we look at our issues of debt, we also have to repay what we have borrowed. This means we need 25 years from now to 2048. Then we will be 100, by then [we[ will be a prosperous society,” he was quoted as saying.