Sri Lanka, US review growing bilateral ties

              

US State Department’s Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Deputy Assistant Secretary Kelly Keiderling this week held wide-ranging discussions covering bilateral relations and matters of mutual interest with Foreign Secretary Admiral Prof. Jayanath Colombage.

Ambassador Keiderling was on an official visit to Sri Lanka from 13 to 15 November. The Foreign Secretary extended a warm welcome to the visiting senior official from the US Department of State to Sri Lanka, the Foreign Ministry said.

The Foreign Secretary thanked the Government and people of the US for the continued support and assistance extended to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and to mitigate the environmental and socio-economic impact of the MV X-Press Pearl disaster.

He expressed the sincere appreciation of the Government of Sri Lanka to the US Government for the recent gift of the third cutter ‘Douglas Munro’ to the Sri Lanka Navy, which would augment Sri Lanka’s drug smuggling interdiction capacity and prevention of other illicit activities in the high seas.

He also explained to the visiting US official the progress being made in the areas of reconciliation, accountability, rehabilitation and human rights in Sri Lanka.

The Foreign Secretary and the US top official reviewed ongoing bilateral initiatives between the two countries, including convening of the US-Sri Lanka Partnership Dialogue. They also exchanged views on important contemporary issues, such as strengthening democracy, the need for international cooperation to combat climate change and global pandemics and organic farming.

DAS Keiderling also met with Sri Lankan officials, civil society, business representatives, and youth leaders and learned about the challenges in the Sri Lankan-US bilateral relationship and also about the great potential and areas of cooperation.

In her meetings, the US official emphasised the importance of global health cooperation, respect for human rights, empowering entrepreneurs, international maritime rules, and people-to-people ties, the US Embassy in Colombo said.