{"id":107792,"date":"2020-10-20T15:49:05","date_gmt":"2020-10-20T22:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=107792"},"modified":"2020-10-20T15:49:05","modified_gmt":"2020-10-20T22:49:05","slug":"visit-of-the-us-secretary-of-state-mike-pompeo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/10\/20\/visit-of-the-us-secretary-of-state-mike-pompeo\/","title":{"rendered":"VISIT OF THE US SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aloysius Hettiarachchi<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

It\nhas been announce yesterday (20\/10\/\u201920) that the US Secretary of State Mike\nPompeo is to visit in about a week\u2019s time to our country. The GOSL cabinet\nspokes person Mr. Rambukwella said that we give a warm welcome to him just like\nto any other high official of a friendly country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\ndo not think majority of Sri Lankans would have serious objections to this\nvisit from a country which has the highest commercial dealing with us. However\nwe must not forget that there is a high level of suspicion among the majority\nof Sri Lankans on the activities of their envoy just prior to the Easter Sunday\nattack. Were they involved in a \u2018fishing in troubled waters\u2019?. There seem to be\nso many different groups in the US administration and they have argument among\nthemselves on policy all the time. So, we cannot attribute everything happening\nthere to the policy of his boss who is seeking a second term. There is no doubt\nthat Mr.Pompeo is looking for some additional points for his boss\u2019 success in\nthe election. Let us wish him well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nam happy that at this juncture his opposite number in our country is the son of\na patriotic leader of yester year, late honorable Mr. Philip Gunawardena. He\ntoo was a visionary leader the writer had met in early 70s when he visited his\nwork site close to Colombo. During the progress of the site visit he mentioned\nthat our biggest problem will be the generation of sufficient power for the\nindustries. How true is that statement?. We have to face this problem every\nyear during the dry spell around March when we have power cuts. And we pay a\nhefty price per unit of electricity. Although this is not the subject area of\nHon. Dinesh, he could initiate a discussion on trying to get the US help on generation\nand infrastructure development in the power sector.  US too is in bad shape due to the effect of\nCovid. So they may not have cash to offer, but a sensible plan of action could\nbe drawn up, subject to transparent negotiations in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However\nthis is not the time for any MCC agreement where we have to tie up land for\nsale issues, or preparation of land registries by foreign entities like Trimble\nInc. controlled by Indians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aloysius Hettiarachchi It has been announce yesterday (20\/10\/\u201920) that the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is to visit in about a week\u2019s time to our country. The GOSL cabinet spokes person Mr. Rambukwella said that we give a warm welcome to him just like to any other high official of a friendly country. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}