UN Secretary General Ban-ki moon to arrive next week

At the invitation of the Government, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, accompanied by Mrs Ban Soon-taek, will visit Sri Lanka from 31 August to 2 September 2016.

The Secretary-General is expected to arrive in Sri Lanka in the evening of 31 August from Myanmar, and leave Sri Lanka late night on 2 September for China to participate in the G20 Summit.

In Colombo, on 31 August, the Secretary-General will meet Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. He will call on President Maithripala Sirisena on 1 September.

The Secretary-General will travel to Galle on 1 September, where he will participate in an event involving youth under the theme ?Reconciliation and Coexistence: Role of Youth?.

On 2 September, the Secretary-General will travel to Jaffna, where he will meet the Governor of the Northern Province Reginald Cooray, Leader of the Opposition R. Sampanthan and members of the TNA, and visit a resettlement site.

During the visit, the Secretary-General will also meet with several Cabinet Ministers including the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mangala Samaraweera; the Speaker of the Parliament Karu Jayasuriya and Political Party Leaders; and civil society representatives.

At the invitation of the Chairperson and Board of the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies (LKIIRSS), the Secretary-General will speak at a public event in Colombo on 2 September on ?Sustaining Peace ? Achieving Sustainable Development Goals?, focusing in particular on Goal 16, namely, the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development.

At the end of his visit on 2 September, the Secretary-General will address the media at a press briefing organized by the United Nations Office in Colombo.

Ban-ki moon had visited Sri Lanka soon after the war when then President Mahinda Rajapaksa was in office. (Colombo Gazette)