- Rajapaksa-led four-member Sri Lankan parliamentary delegation in Islamabad
Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee Chairperson Senator Nuzhat Sadiq in a meeting with four-member Sri Lankan parliamentary delegation led by former Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa, has said that Pakistan highly values its relations with Sri Lanka and desires to further expand the friendly ties in different spheres.
She said both Pakistan and Sri Lanka were faced with common challenges and share similarity of views on regional and global issues. Senator Nuzhat, who was accompanied by Senators Karim Ahmed Khawaja, Momin Khan Afridi, Shibli Faraz and Daud Achakzai, observed that both the nation have stood by the side of each other in testing times.
She also underscored the need to further enhance parliamentary cooperation by accelerating exchange of parliamentary delegations. Rajapaksa appreciated Pakistan’s cooperation and said that Sri Lanka wants to learn from parliamentary experience of Pakistan, as Sri Lanka was also considering various constitutional reforms.
Senate’s Additional Secretary Dr Pervez Abbas briefed the delegation about working of the Senate, its constitutional role, powers and functions with special reference to the new initiatives taken to restore majesty of the parliament. The delegation termed the briefing informative and expressed the desire to benefit from the knowledge and experience of Pakistan.
Speaking at an event organised by the Centre for Research and Security Studies (CRSS) and the Global Village Space (GVS), Rajapaksa said that the long relationship between Pakistan and Sri Lanka was sustained by cultural heritage, economies, and common stand on international issues. The topic of the talk was “Sri Lanka’s Struggle for Peace and its Lessons for Pakistan and the Region.”
The event was chaired by Asif Yasin Malik, a retired lieutenant general of the Pakistan Army. The former Lankan president said that Pakistan has a lot to learn about peace-building from Sri Lanka, and there was a lot of parallel between the situations in the two countries vis-à-vis terrorism.
In her introductory remarks, former ambassador Seema Baloch stated that the Sri Lankan government took decisive action against terrorism. Following its success, Sri Lanka began to open its routes and increasingly integrate with the international community, she said. “He (Rajapaksa) is a leader of the masses,” she stated while introducing the former president.
Speaking on the issue of human rights, she called out the international community for its double standards. “In some cases, we describe the lives of others as collateral damage and in other cases we emphasise it as civilian casualty,” she said. In his comments, Rajapaksa said there was no distinction between terrorists, mirroring the good vs bad Taliban debate in Pakistan.
He said that terrorism was against the spirit of humanity and no country can prosper if people were compelled to live their lives under fear. In the case of Sri Lanka, armed forces provided unrelenting support, backed by actual and concrete actions on part of the government, he said. Successful anti-terrorism operations depends as much on internal factors as they do on external factors, he said.
He said that public education and support was necessary to thwart any sympathy or help for the enemy. “There is no room for hypocrisy or double-dealing,” he stressed. In his concluding remarks, Rajapaksa stressed that nations must learn from one another, be productive and provide practical solutions. He stressed on the need for more such dialogues and platforms to better understand the menace of terrorism and employ measures to combat it and achieve peace in the region.
