Adding to recent unsubstantiated claims by the Sri Lankan government that it is talking to the Tamil diaspora, the Minister Keheliya Rambukwella explained that it was a government strategy to use the recently freed former LTTE commander, Selvarasa Pathmanathan or KP to forge "constructive dialogue" with the Tamil diaspora.

Rambukwella said:

British authorities are set to deport 60 failed asylum seekers to Sri Lanka on Tuesday the 23rd of October, according to reports.

A specially chartered plane is set to take the asylum seekers to Sri Lanka, departing from an undisclosed terminal at Heathrow Airport reported Ceylon Today.

The scheduled deportation comes just days after the Foreign Affairs Committee released a report which called on the British government to take greater care in evaluating the risk of torture to deported asylum seekers returning to Sri Lanka.

A court in Chennai has refused to revoke a non-bailable arrest warrant for Sri Lankan Minister of Traditional Industries & Small Enterprise Development, Douglas Devananda.

Douglas is wanted in India for the shooting and killing of a lawyer in Chennai in 1986 and has been wanted for murder in the country since.

He has recently approached the court and requested a cancellation of the warrant and said thare may be a risk to him if he enters the Tamil Nadu for the trial.

The JVP reiterated their stance that the 13th Amendment to the constitution will not provide a solution to the 'ethnic issue', reports Colombo Page.

Vijitha Herath, named as the Propaganda Secretary by Colombo Page, stressed that the country should not accept any solution imposed on them by another country, and argued that the 13th Amendment had exacerbated the ethnic issue.

In a meeting with a senior Sri Lankan Government official, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed the need for a political solution that addressed the underlying factors behind the country’s civil war, despite the Sri Lankan official’s attempts to highlight that ‘progress’ had been made by the Sri Lankan government on resettlement issues.

The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in March, called on the Government to take “all necessary additional steps to ensure justice, equity, accountability and reconciliation for all Sri Lankans.”

The US Embassy in Colombo has expressed concern over Sri Lanka’s Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) resettlement programme.

A press release by the embassy welcomed the government’s speedy resettlement of a large number of IDPs, but noted concern about resettlement on land “without adequate shelter, water and sanitation”.