ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan will leave for a two-day official visit to Sri Lanka on Tuesday.
This will be Khan’s first visit to Sri Lanka after assuming the office of prime minister in August 2018. He will be accompanied by a high-level delegation, including members of the cabinet.
The premier is visiting the country on the invitation of his Sri Lankan counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa, Radio Pakistan reported.
During the visit, Khan will hold talks with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Prime Minister Rajapaksa, and Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena, officials familiar with the situation said.
Bilateral talks would cover issues of trade and investment, health and education, agriculture and science and technology, defence and security, and culture and tourism. Key regional and international issues would also be discussed, a Foreign Office (FO) statement said.
“During the visit, the reconstitution of the Sri Lanka-Pakistan Parliamentary Friendship Association will be announced to further promote parliamentary exchanges between the two countries,” the statement added.
Khan will also participate in a joint “Trade and Investment Conference”.
As Sri Lanka prepares to welcome Khan, several members of the country’s Muslim minority expressed hope for him to take up their concerns during talks with government officials.
Muslims make up nearly 10 per cent of the country’s population of 22 million, which is predominantly Buddhist. The Indian Ocean island was torn for decades by a civil war between separatists from the mostly Hindu Tamil minority and the Sinhala Buddhist-dominated government.
The government stamped out the rebellion some 11 years ago.
However, in recent years, Buddhist hardliners, led by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) or “Buddhist Power Force” — a Sinhalese Buddhist nationalist group — have stoked hostility against Muslims, saying influences from the Middle East had made Sri Lanka’s Muslims more conservative and isolated.
In 2018, scores of mosques, Muslim homes and businesses were destroyed as Buddhist mobs ran amok for three days in Kandy, the central highlands district.
Representatives of the nation’s Muslims said that they were banking on the “great Muslim leader” to “speak on our behalf.”
“The community wishes to welcome a great Muslim leader who is coming as his country’s prime minister for the first time. He is in a vantage position to speak on behalf of the Sri Lankan Muslims,” NM Ameen, president of the Sri Lanka Muslim Council, told Arab News.
“Prime Minister Khan must use his visit to assist in our struggles for human rights, justice and accountability for all in Sri Lanka,” Shreen Saroor, women’s rights activist and co-founder of the Women’s Action Network, said.
