Sri Lanka

Part of Orders of the Day – in the House of Commons at 3:52 pm on 2 May 2007.

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Photo of Simon Hughes Simon Hughes Shadow Attorney General, Shadow Lord Chancellor and Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, Party Chair, Liberal Democrats 3:52, 2 May 2007

I do not know the up-to-date position, I have not recently had a conversation with the Tamil leaders. From the point of view of the Sri Lankan Government, if I was seeking peace I should be terribly frustrated. The ceasefire agreement was broken and recent incidents are unacceptable. The lessons of Northern Ireland are that we just have to keep on going. As Stephen Pound said, the helpful things are the conversations and initiatives behind the scenes, such as those taken by Norway, and, sometimes in the past, the Indian Government or the British Government. Dr. Fox was positive and proactive when he was a Minister. I hope that the Commonwealth will do more and take more responsibility.

It is not encouraging when there is yet another suicide mission or bombing, but all the independent objective advice shows that there have been faults and terrible actions on both sides. Therefore, as the right hon. Member for Torfaen so wisely said, it is no good going back over history all the time. We have to move on.