Sri Lanka calls for Tamil refugees in Australia to return

Sri Lankan external affairs minister has asked the Tamil refugees in Australia who fled the nation's bloody civil war to come home.

The Tamils had quietly slipped into Canberra for talks on combating people smugglers.

According to the Age, G.L. Peiris said Sri Lanka was now in a perfectly stable condition, with an economic boom in the once devastated northern Tamil regions.

He, however, warned smugglers sending record numbers of Sri Lankans by boat to Australia were making unconscionable profits.

Professor Peiris said that Sri Lanka was a land at peace, and a perfectly stable society.

Human rights activists have routinely accused the Sri Lankan government of continuously torturing for more than four years after the end of the military campaign against the separatist Tamil Tigers.

According to the report, Professor Peiris met with Senator Carr, Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor, Defence Minister Stephen Smith and deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop this week and will open a new Sri Lankan consulate in Melbourne on Friday.

He also said Sri Lanka was ready to welcome thousands of people who fled during the last months of fighting in 2009.