{"id":48824,"date":"2016-10-05T13:06:19","date_gmt":"2016-10-05T17:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=48824"},"modified":"2016-10-05T13:06:19","modified_gmt":"2016-10-05T17:06:19","slug":"if-saarc-does-not-deliver-sri-lanka-will-have-to-look-for-other-options-warns-lankan-premier-wickremesinghe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=48824","title":{"rendered":"If SAARC Does not Deliver Sri Lanka will have to look for Other Options Warns Lankan Premier Wickremesinghe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By P.K.Balachandran <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has warned that if the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) does not deliver the goods satisfactory to all the member states, Sri Lanka will have to look for other options.<\/p>\n<p>However, he suggested ways to keep SAARC going as it can play an important role.<br \/>\nWickremesinghe made these remarks in his speech on \u201cSri Lanka and its place in the world\u201d at the Main Hall of the New Zealand parliament on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Referring to the indefinite postponement of the 19 th. SAARC summit at Islamabad because of a military confrontation between members India and Pakistan, the Sri Lankan Prime Minister said that holding the summit is a \u201cmatter of great importance\u201d because SAARC can  play an important role in the South Asian region.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Wickremesinghe, therefore, suggested ways of sustaining SAARC. For one ,member states could agree on a few very simple things. In this context he referred to Sri Lanka\u2019s suggestion made at the time SAARC was found in 1985, to have an agreement to abjure cross border terrorism. This suggestion was spurned at that time as not all members agreed, he recalled.<\/p>\n<p>Incidentally, at that time, India was promoting the Tamil militant groups in Sri Lanka and giving them arms and bases in Tamil Nadu. The South Asian region would have been a peaceful place if the Sri Lankan suggestion had been adopted then.<\/p>\n<p>Wickremesinghe\u2019s other suggestion is to integrate SAARC with functioning associations in the Asian region  like ASEAN and also the Commonwealth. The Prime Minister touted his new found theory that the Indian Ocean is going to be the region with a future and therefore, the Indian Ocean region should be integrated through effective mechanisms.<\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\nCourtesy:New Indian Express<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"tweetbutton48824\" class=\"tw_button\" style=\"float:right;margin-left:10px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdbsjeyaraj.com%2Fdbsj%2F%3Fp%3D48824&amp;text=If%20SAARC%20Does%20not%20Deliver%20Sri%20Lanka%20will%20have%20to%20look%20for%20Other%20Options%20Warns%20Lankan%20Premier%20Wickremesinghe&amp;related=&amp;lang=en&amp;count=horizontal\" class=\"twitter-share-button\"  style=\"width:55px;height:22px;background:transparent url('https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/wp-content\/plugins\/wp-tweet-button\/tweetn.png') no-repeat  0 0;text-align:left;text-indent:-9999px;display:block;\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By P.K.Balachandran Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has warned that if the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) does not deliver the goods satisfactory to all the member states, Sri Lanka will have to look for other options. However, he suggested ways to keep SAARC going as it can play an important role. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=48824\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading &lsquo;If SAARC Does not Deliver Sri Lanka will have to look for Other Options Warns Lankan Premier Wickremesinghe&rsquo; &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48824"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48824"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48825,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48824\/revisions\/48825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}