Sri Lanka’s foreign minister says his country needs more time to fulfil promises given to the U.N. human rights body to investigate war crimes allegations from a long civil war that ended seven years ago.
Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera told foreign correspondents that the government will seek more time at the next U.N human rights session starting Feb. 27.
Sri Lanka, in a joint resolution in 2015 at the U.N. Human Rights Council, promised to work toward ethnic reconciliation, which includes investigating alleged abuses.
The U.N. human rights chief had called for a hybrid court with local and international judges. Sri Lanka agreed to the participation of foreign judges before backtracking and now insists on local courts investigating the allegations.
Samaraweera, however, said that Sri Lanka had agreed only to foreign participation at different levels in the judicial process, but not to have foreign judges hearing the cases.
-AFP
-Agencies
