UN chief Ban Ki-moon arrives in Sri Lanka

UN chief Ban Ki-moon arrives in Sri Lanka
UN chief Ban Ki-moon arrives in Sri Lanka Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), Ban Ki-moon, accompanied by Mrs. Ban Soon-taek, arrived in Sri Lanka, a short while ago, for an official visit. The Secretary-General arrived at the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) in Katunayake today (31) from Myanmar, and is expected to leave Sri Lanka late night on September 2 for China to participate in the G20 Summit.   He will meet Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on August 31, and will call on President Maithripala Sirisena on September 1 in Colombo.   The Secretary-General will travel to Galle the same day, where he will participate in an event involving youth under the theme ‘Reconciliation and Coexistence: Role of Youth’.   On September 2, the Secretary-General will travel to Jaffna, where he will meet the Governor of the Northern Province Reginald Cooray, Leader of the Opposition R. Sampanthan and members of the TNA, and visit a resettlement site.   During the visit, the Secretary-General will also meet with several Cabinet Ministers including the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mangala Samaraweera; the Speaker of the Parliament Karu Jayasuriya, Political Party Leaders; and civil society representatives.   At the invitation of the Chairperson and Board of the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRSS), the Secretary-General will speak at a public event in Colombo on 2 September on ‘Sustaining Peace – Achieving Sustainable Development Goals’, focusing in particular on Goal 16, namely, the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development. This will be Ban Ki-moon’s second visit to Sri Lanka. He toured the island in May 2009 immediately after the Sri Lankan troops defeated the LTTE ending the three decades old civil war. Since that visit, Lanka came under close UN scrutiny for its war crimes accountability during the war with the LTTE. The UN Human Rights Council has passed three resolutions since 2012 to urge accountability for war crimes blamed on both the government troops and the LTTE