{"id":97495,"date":"2020-01-08T11:04:28","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T18:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=97495"},"modified":"2020-01-08T11:04:28","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T18:04:28","slug":"iran-us-conflict-is-sri-lanka-unnecessarily-caught-in-the-middle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/01\/08\/iran-us-conflict-is-sri-lanka-unnecessarily-caught-in-the-middle\/","title":{"rendered":"IRAN-US conflict: Is Sri Lanka unnecessarily caught in the middle?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>Shenali D Waduge<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka has weathered enough of internal conflicts. We do not\nneed to be dragged into an international conflict but the possibilities of Sri\nLanka becoming a sitting duck is looming dangerously. Agreements signed with US\nallows US military to use our onshore airports &amp; airports to service their\nmilitary planes, ships &amp; submarines and even for logistics like water and\nfood. What\u2019s more US bomber planes can launch targets leaving Sri Lanka &amp; target\nfriendly nations like Iran, China, Pakistan, Russia\u2026. Is this what we want? No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our relations with some nations are\nlong &amp; cherished and we cannot forget these ties for some military\nagreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The whole point of Sri Lanka committing its national policy to being a Non-Aligned Nation was to uphold 5 principles<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>1. Mutual respect for each other&#8217;s\nterritorial integrity and sovereignty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2. Mutual non-aggression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>3. Mutual non-interference in\ndomestic affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>4. Equality and mutual benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>5. Peaceful co-existence<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sri Lanka remains a non-aligned\nnation. Our policy of non-alignment is now threatened. Sri Lanka has been\nturned into a base to allow a country to launch attacks at another country. The\nagreements we have signed compel us to commit to whatever this country demands\nas logistical &amp; military requirements. In so doing, we are compromising our\nfriendship with friendly nations who have never been hostile to Sri Lanka. This\nis a major faux pas that the legislature and the executive of the country must\nseriously relook at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By taking side of one country and\nturning a blind eye to a historically friendly nation, Sri Lanka will lose a\nfriend and is likely to become a future target for attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What have our so-called leaders done\nto turn Sri Lanka into a target nation for future missiles and bombs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We should ideally be promoting Asia\nas a ZONE OF PEACE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shenali D Waduge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shenali D Waduge Sri Lanka has weathered enough of internal conflicts. We do not need to be dragged into an international conflict but the possibilities of Sri Lanka becoming a sitting duck is looming dangerously. Agreements signed with US allows US military to use our onshore airports &amp; airports to service their military planes, ships [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-shenali-waduge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97495","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=97495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}