Sri Lankan President says easy for Biden to speak to Hamas than Congress

Sri Lanka’s President Ranil Wickremesinghe says it might be easy for US President Joe Biden to speak to Hamas than the US Congress.

Addressing the Galle Dialogue 2023 Indian Ocean defense conference, the Sri Lakan leader said that he would like to be in President Biden’s shoes.

“How does he handle it this way? Bad enough, with allies on both sides. How do you handle it domestically when you have to think of the Jewish vote block at the next election and his difficulty of speaking to congress? It may be easy for him to speak to Hamas than to speak to Congress leadership,” Wickremesinghe said.

He also?cautioned saying if Gaza was destroyed it would have a rippling effect from Turkey to the Philippines and Governments could lose control.

?Destroying Hamas is one thing. They can take military action against it. But what is the reaction, if you go and destroy Gaza, the whole situation will change in 24 hours. There is nothing, the governments here can control. From here all the way to Indonesia and elsewhere, governments will lose control of the situation?. If you go into Gaza, the whole Middle East will be on fire that will affect all of us here. Turkey on one end up to the Philippines, on the other side it will affect central Asia,? President Wickremesinghe said.

He said the next few days will decide what the options are adding that the decisions taken by the US President be key.

“Let?s hope wise leadership prevails. We all see lots of back-door diplomacy is going on. If all that will succeed somehow we can hold the situation. Otherwise, will have to meet again to decide what the new order that has emerged,” he added.

Military officials from a number of countries attended the Galle Dialogue 2023. (Colombo Gazette)