Sri Lanka’s foreign minister Prof. G.L. Peiris on Monday said that international pressure to probe allegations of human rights violations is not only unhelpful, but is also “absolutely harmful” to the country.

“Because of the intensity of this pressure there is a disincentive to engage in earnest in a domestic process. Because of the conviction that far more is forthcoming by the application of pressure at an international level,” he said, addressing the inaugural sessions of the ‘Defence Seminar – 2014’ in Colombo.

He stated that the optics of engagement in a local process will take “the wind out of the sails” of the international process and that is the real reason there is reluctance or hesitation to engage in the local process.

“And that is why this international pressure is not only not helpful, but is absolutely harmful.”

“All these do-gooders, these Good Samaritans who have lessons to deliver to this country, forgetting far too often they do not live up to their own lessons and their own precepts,” the Minister of External Affairs charged.

Prof. Peiris further stressed that Sri Lanka has a solid cultural foundation and a tradition protected and nurtured and developed over the centuries.

“Traditions that have made us what we are. And these are the traditions that give us the strength and the courage to confront the future with confidence,” he said.