The United States with Sri Lanka in investigating recent terrorist attacks and strengthening its counterterrorism capabilities by building maritime and border security capacity for the island nation.
This was stated among other military initiatives in the South Asian region by Alice G Wells Senior State Department Official for South and Central Asian Affairs when she addressed House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee for Asia, the Pacific and Nonproliferation, foreign news agencies reported.
A foreign news agency quoted Wells as saying “We request that Congress support the department's new security cooperation programme in South Asia, the Bay of Bengal Initiative, with $30 million in foreign military financing that will build maritime and border security capacity for Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Maldives,".
"The FBI quickly deployed at the request of the Sri Lankan government and helped dismantle the local terrorist organisations that carried out these attacks," she told the lawmakers in her prepared statement.
“Now we are assessing ways in which we may support the Sri Lankan government while it re-orients its security apparatus toward addressing international terrorism, and we will continue to impress upon Sri Lanka the need to respect human rights, including for members of minority groups, refugees, and asylum seekers," Wells said.
(LI)