Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to encourage the Sri Lankan government to cooperate with a UN investigation into alleged war crimes.

We continue to urge the Sri Lankan government to co-operate fully with the UN Human Rights Council resolution of March 2014, which calls for an international investigation into alleged violations of international law on both sides of Sri Lanka’s recent conflict. Our High Commissioner to Sri Lanka has raised this point directly with members of the Sri Lankan government and in public statements. We also continue to call for the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, and the Commonwealth Secretary-General, to use their leverage to encourage Sri Lanka’s co-operation.

More recently, during the opening session of the UN Human Rights Council in September, our Ambassador to the UN also called upon the Sri Lankan government to co-operate with the investigation and ensure those co-operating with the investigation can do so without fear of intimidation or reprisal.