Colombo: Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa today said he wishes to see more foreign leaders visiting his country to experience the island's post conflict progress.
Rajapaksa commented on the progress of the country while receiving the Prime Minister of Portugal, Pedro Passos Coelho. The Portuguese leader arrived here on a two-day visit.
The president also explained the successful military campaign which ended the three-decade-long separatist movement by the LTTE.
“It would take time to heal the wounds of war because a lot of young people died from the south and the north,” Rajapaksa said, adding the visits by foreign leaders were important.
The leaders of the Commonwealth nations who visited the country last November expressed surprise as the reports that had gone out from Sri Lanka were different from the ground reality in the island's post conflict phase. He said the war devastated north had recorded over 20 per cent growth highlighting the government's development work in rebuilding the infrastructure.
The LTTE was defeated in a military campaign in 2009, ending a nearly three decades-long civil war in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has been subjected to an international probe into alleged human rights violations during the last phase of the war with the LTTE.
Rajapaksa administration has been accused of not doing enough to achieve reconciliation with the Tamil minority in its post-conflict phase.
