Ban calls for speedy political solution in Lanka

Sri Lanka's human rights envoy Mahinda Samarasinghe met with Ban ahead of this month's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on the country that will take place in Geneva.

Ban stressed the need to "find a speedy political solution to the underlying factors behind the country's civil war that ended three years ago with a Government victory over Tamil separatist rebels", a UN statement said.

The meeting comes months after the adoption of the US-sponsored and India-backed resolution at the UN Human Rights Council sessions held late March.

The UN Human Rights Council called on the government to take "all necessary additional steps to fulfil its relevant legal obligations and commitment to initiate credible and independent actions to ensure justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation for all Sri Lankans."

The main elements of the UN resolution which had urged expeditious action by the Sri Lankan government over its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) were that Sri Lanka should formulate an action plan, and that the office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner in consultation with the government of Sri Lanka offer advice and technical assistance on implementation of the resolution.

Sri Lanka on its part claims that most of the reconciliation commission recommendations had already been implemented while the rest would be implemented in the long term.

The UPR requires Sri Lanka to showcase its progress made on the pledges of commitment made at the UNHRC in 2008.

The process of political reconciliation with the Tamil minority is to be achieved through the inclusive process of a parliamentary select committee.

However the main Tamil party, Tamil National Alliance has shown reluctance to take part in its deliberations charging that the government intend using it as a tool to further drag the issue of achieving meaningful reconciliation.