COLOMBO: The United States will be moving a resolution on human rights and alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka at the September session of the UN Human Right Council (UNHRC) but the resolution will be drafted in collaboration with the Lankan government, visiting US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Nisha Biswal said on Wednesday.

Briefing media Biswal said that the US-led “collaborative” resolution will ‘reflect’ on the way forward for Lanka in its bid to address human rights and governance issues and stated that the US resolution will depend on the findings and recommendations contained in the report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The US has not seen the report yet, she said.

Biswal said that the US resolution will take into account “changes in the landscape” that had taken place in Lanka in the past year and the “substantial progress” made towards reconciliation in the past few months, referring to the government of President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that was ushered in after the Jan 8 Presidential elections.

The US had been in the forefront in adopting three resolutions at the UNHRC on Lanka, the last of which in 2014, had called for an international independent investigation into alleged human rights abuses and war crimes.

Published in Dawn, August 27th, 2015

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