PM Rajapaksa thanked for supporting Palestinian cause

COLOMBO : The Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine (SLCSP) has expressed its deep appreciation and heartfelt gratitude to Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa for the recent official statement representing Sri Lanka during the recent social violence and military hostilities in Israel-Palestine. In a letter addressed to the premier, the committee further said: “ We fully welcome your firm expression, on behalf of Sri Lanka, of strong support for the Palestinian cause in general and your call for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Palestine. Our Solidarity movement, which you have guided as its founder president and patron, for many years, welcomes the Sri Lanka Government’s timely statement to the world community expressing our nation’s deep concerns about the worsening hostilities in Israeli-Palestine, the unrelenting misery being inflicted on the Palestinian people and, the urgent need for a process to end the Occupation. The Committee expresses its deep admiration for your courageous stance on the world stage, at this moment of intense tensions, in identifying the Palestinian crisis as “a direct consequence of colonialism” and reiterating your position “that the Palestinian people’s legitimate right to statehood must be upheld”. We also welcome your strong call for urgent talks between the parties to the conflict, the latest violent phase of which has killed more than 200 civilians, including 63 children.  The Committee is relieved that the current ceasefire is holding, despite some incidents, but strongly believes that the continuing trauma of the Israeli Occupation can be resolved only when an independent Palestine is established with East Jerusalem as its capital in terms of the two-state solution which the world community support”.The letter is signed by the committee Co-Chairman Bimal Ratnayaka and its General Secretary Fawzer Farook.