Sri Lanka's External Affairs Minister welcomes no-confidence motion against him

Sri Lanka's External Affairs Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris has said that he "welcomed" the no-confidence motion handed over to the Speaker by a group of opposition United National Party (UNP) parliamentarians against him.

"For my own part, I welcome unreservedly the no-confidence motion as an opportunity of value to put firmly into the public domain, for all to see and reflect upon, unmistakable evidence, including official documents published by foreign governments, indicating the extent to which the Leader of the United National Party has tried to inflict incalculable damage on Sri Lanka, and the intensity of the efforts consistently made by President Rajapaksa and his Government to protect the integrity and stature of our nation against this onslaught," Prof. Peiris has said in a statement issued to the media.

"There is a supreme irony - surely not lost on the public - in the spectacle of Mr. Ranil Wickremasinghe, leader of the UNP, instigating his party to move a motion of no-confidence in the Minister of External Affairs, when nothing is more painfully evident than the degree of confidence which his own party places in him and his leadership. The public is treated to the continuing fiasco of members of his party leaving him in droves, making on his qualities of leadership comments reflecting depths of despair, unique in the annals of political history," it said.

"The proposed motion is nothing but a clumsy diversionary manoeuvre, to distract the attention of the public from the most recent episode this week, in which eight more members of his party, having made historic statements on the floor of Parliament parted company with him," Minister Peiris has noted.

"As for the panel appointed by the Secretary-General, of the United Nations, the truth is that no one has contributed to this situation in more generous measure than Mr. Wickremasinghe himself. It is hard to think of any instance, of a political leader who has had so little hesitation in exhorting foreign governments to undermine the vital interests of his own country, in pursuit of partisan goals which he has convincingly proved himself unable to achieve by his own strength."

Prof. Peiris concludes the statement saying, "I look forward to the debate as an opportunity for exposing the frivolous nature of the motion and the pettiness that underpins it."