German parliamentarians visit North-East

A delegation from the German South Asia Parliamentary Group toured the North-East today, meeting with the Chief Minister of Northern Province C V Wigneswaran. During their visit to the North-East the delegation also met with Tamil National Alliance leader R Sampanthan, the Bishop of Jaffna, Rev Gnanapragasam and students at the site of new vocational training school in Kilinochchi. Yesterday the German delegation held talks with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena, who told them that he was “totally committed to safeguarding national security as well as regional security”. They also met with Sri Lanka’s Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Harsha de Silva who announced that the German NGO, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, would be allowed to function on the island once more. The NGO was effectively forced to suspend its activities on the island, following a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) investigation in 2013. “Today we welcomed back to Sri Lanka the German Friedrich Naumann Foundation that the previous government evicted on an absurd and ludicrous allegation,” announced Mr de Silva in a Facebook post this morning.