Construction work has been suspended on a Buddhist temple being built on illegally appropriated Tamil land in Mullaitivu.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena thanked a delegation of Buddhist monks from Korea for their contribution to Buddhism this week, whilst meeting them in Colombo.

The delegation of Korean Bhikkhus, including the Chief Incumbent of the Yeorae Yaksasa Temple in Korea, met with Mr Sirisena in Temple Trees.

According to the Official Government News Portal of Sri Lanka:

“The President Sirisena also commended the enormous religious service done by the Bhikkhus of the both countries for the development of Buddhism.”

The Sri Lankan military marked 6 years since the capture of Mullaitivu last week, with a military ceremony and Buddhist ceremony at its Mullaitivu headquarters last week.

The Ministry of Defence reported that a Buddhist “All-Night Pirith chanting ceremony” was held, overseen by 18 Buddhist monks and Major General Sudantha Ranasinghe.

Mr Ranasinghe can be seen below in the photo on the left, dressed in white receiving blessings from Buddhist monk Panwila Gunarathana Nayaka.

Meanwhile prayer sessions were also reportedly held at a Hindu temple, a mosque and church in Mullaitivu, which the Major General attended in full military uniform.

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said the former defence secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa should not have been charge of the Sri Lanka’s national security as he was a US citizen who had “renounced any allegiance to Sri Lanka”, in a speech to parliament last week.

Speaking in Sinhala, Mr Wickremesinghe told lawmakers that Mr Rajapaksa “was in-charge of people who were bearing arms for the republic of Sri Lanka, while he under law, was obliged to bear arms for the United States of America”.

The Prime Minister went on to state that if the United States had gone to war with Sri Lanka, then Mr Rajapaksa would have fought alongside the Americans against Sri Lanka.

Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa alleged that Sri Lanka’s national security and economy was at risk under the new regimes governance.

A representative of the US State Department met with the chairman of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation Chairman to discuss Sri Lanka’s potential violation of its commitment to US sanctions on Iran’s crude oil.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) will not be supporting the 20th Amendment, which has recently been approved by the Sri Lankan cabinet, as it will reduce the number of parliamentary seats in Jaffna from 11 to 6, said spokesperson Suresh Premachandran.

The SLFP opposition leader Nimal Siripala de Silva on Wednesday questioned Foreigm Minister Mangala Samaraweera over the meeting with the Global Tamil Forum and the TNA which occurred in London last weekend.

Mr de Silva said in a statement to parliament, GTF had been acting against the national interests of Sri Lanka, by promoting a “separatist agenda and destroying Sri Lanka’s image at international forums”.

"There were further reports that the meeting had been facilitated by some non-governmental organisations based in South Africa, several Norwegian organisations and was attended by representatives of a political party in Sri Lanka and an MP of that party [TNA MP MA Sumanthiran],” he said.

The opposition leader said the meeting was reported to have been aimed at lifting the ban on Tamil diaspora groups, including the GTF, as terrorist entities.

Sri Lanka’s currency dropped to a record low on Friday, Reuters reported.

On Thursday, the Central Bank governor Arjuna Mahendran said warned that the government should let market forces determine its rupee exchange rate and that trying to buck the global trend of a rising dollar is "suicidal".

Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake said on Thursday that Sri Lanka is planning to borrow $1bn, in five-year syndicated loans from international banks and it could borrow up to $2bn.

"We feel, before the LIBOR goes up, we can do certain things and get the benefits," Karunanayake told a Foreign Correspondents Association (FCA) forum in Colombo.

"We find unsolicited proposals coming in from banks like BNP, Credit Suisse, and Barclays roughly at 325-375 (basis points) and we believe that we could collect about $1 billion in the next couple of days .... It would even go up to $2 billion."

Mr Karunanayake also said Sri Lanka is negotiating foreign exchange swaps with two more countries, after a swap agreement with India for $1,500mn was completed in March, with around $400mn already drawn.

A domestic mechanism to deal with issues of accountability in Sri Lanka will not be sufficient, said a US Senator in a situational update on Sri Lanka.

US Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, stressing the importance of accountability for potential war crimes on Tuesday, said,

“For years, impunity for serious crimes has been the norm in Sri Lanka.  The government is working to establish what it describes as a “domestic mechanism” to deal with accountability for human rights violations.  A purely domestic mechanism, however, is not likely to be sufficient."

Stressing the need for a credible accountability process, which includes prosecutions, he added,

It is essential that the justice process is not only about truth telling, but is a credible, independent mechanism with authority to investigate, prosecute, and appropriately punish those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity, on both sides. “

Calling for internationalised accountability mechanisms that were established by consulting families of the war victims, Mr Leahy added,

The Sri Lankan military commander heading Jaffna declared that camps in the North will remain in order to maintain “national security”.

Major General Nandana Udawatte told journalists at the Palali military base in Jaffna that currently the security forces was ensuring there was no security threat in the North, in the wake of violent protests against the rape and murder of a Tamil schoolgirl last month.

However, he went on to say that “today’s security situation can change in the future so we need to keep that in mind as well”.

“The Palaly base is not just for Palali but the entire Jaffna,” continued the commander, insisting that the removal of the army bases could result in a threat to national security. The army commander also conceded that there were still 93 military camps situated in the Jaffna peninsula alone.

He went on to state the army was “a very disciplined unit” and denied all links with the drug trade in the North-East.