Official Visit by the Minister of External Affairs, Prof. G.L. Peiris to the UK

(October 17, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Prof. Gamini Luxman Peiris, Minister of External Affairs will make an official visit to the United Kingdom on 18th October 2010 at the invitation of Mr. William Hague, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. This is the first official Ministerial-level visit to the UK since the formation of the new Government in the UK. Minister Peiris will hold discussions with William Hague, Dr. Liam Fox, Secretary of State for Defence, and other Members of the British Parliament.

During the visit, Minister Peiris has been invited by the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in London, to deliver the keynote address at the “UK-SL Strategic Policy Dialogue”, organized by the IISS (a leading London-based think-tank on strategic and foreign policy issues,) in collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs in Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka High Commission in London.

Minister Peiris will also meet with the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Kamalesh Sharma. Sri Lanka has assumed a leading role within the Commonwealth as the current Chair of the Board of Governor’s of the Commonwealth. Sri Lanka will host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) scheduled in 2013, according to the decision taken by the CHOGM held in Trinidad and Tobago in 2009.