{"id":127940,"date":"2022-08-17T14:21:25","date_gmt":"2022-08-17T21:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=127940"},"modified":"2022-08-17T14:21:25","modified_gmt":"2022-08-17T21:21:25","slug":"weerasekera-alone-refuses-to-abandon-china-ship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2022\/08\/17\/weerasekera-alone-refuses-to-abandon-china-ship\/","title":{"rendered":"Weerasekera alone refuses to abandon China ship"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Shamindra Ferdinando Courtesy The Island<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Former Public Security Minister, Rear Admiral (ret.) Sarath Weerasekera, has taken exception to the withdrawal of permission granted to Chinese research vessel Yuang Wang 5 to visit Hambantota port for refueling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka, in 2017, leased Hambantota harbour to China for 99 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ex-Navy Chief of Staff has raised the issue at hand at the government group meeting, chaired by President Ranil Wickremesinghe, on Monday (08) at the Presidential Secretariat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among those present at the group meeting were Prime Minister Dinesh Gunawardena and former PM and MP Mahinda Rajapaksa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawmaker Weerasekera has explained that it wouldn\u2019t be fair to rescind approval at the behest of India after having given the Chinese go ahead on July 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof. G.L. Peiris had served as the Foreign Affairs Minister at the time the Foreign Ministry granted approval for the vessel to visit Hambantota port.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then new President Ranil Wickremesinghe has sworn in Ali Sabry, PC, as the foreign affairs minister after Prof. Peiris chose to join the SLPP rebel group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sabry, who held justice and finance portfolios under the then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has explained the developments relating to the Chinese ship visit scheduled for Aug 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Declaring that the proposed visit was a routine one and posed no threat at all, Colombo District lawmaker Weerasekera alleged that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had to pay a very heavy price by depending on the US and India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except for SLFP MP Dr. Suren Raghavan, who asked for deferment of the visit, other members of the government group had been silent, sources said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MP Weerasekera has warned that China would be furious with Sri Lanka not with India over the ship controversy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The naval veteran has also referred to joint military exercises conducted with the US and India over a period of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rebel SLPP members hadn\u2019t participated at the group meeting. However, the National Freedom Front (NFF) has issued a statement strongly condemning the government over its response to Indian pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MP has queried the Indian intervention in the wake of Chinese Ambassador in Colombo Qi Zhenhong taking it up with President Wickremesinghe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China throughout the war backed Sri Lanka regardless of change of governments. After the successful conclusion of the war in May 2009, Sri Lanka received Chinese support at the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) where Western powers continuously undermined war winning Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Shamindra Ferdinando Courtesy The Island Former Public Security Minister, Rear Admiral (ret.) Sarath Weerasekera, has taken exception to the withdrawal of permission granted to Chinese research vessel Yuang Wang 5 to visit Hambantota port for refueling. Sri Lanka, in 2017, leased Hambantota harbour to China for 99 years. The ex-Navy Chief of Staff has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127940","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=127940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}