“Neither presidential nor parliamentary forms of government — invariably dominated by the Sinhalese, who make up roughly 74 percent of the country’s 21 million people — is satisfactory to the Tamils and Muslims. Instead, they demand greater autonomy in the north and the east. But Sirisena’s election manifesto is completely silent on the matter.”

"When you take Rajapaksa out, you have to take his methods out. You have to demilitarise the North-East, stop intimidating Tamils, and give back their land. Already there should be elements in this 100 day plan which address the Tamil issue....You definitely have to solve the ethnic conflict before addressing economic reform."

“We offered very immediately to engage in a dialogue to begin to work at guaranteeing that the problems with respect to human rights, the problems with inclusivity, challenges with respect to governance, are going to be addressed.”

“We will engage in that conversation from this moment forward, and hope that we can now forge a different outcome in Sri Lanka."

“Every President wanted to finish the war. But in the 2005 election manifesto, Rajapaksa said he will have peace talks with Prabhakaran.”

“When the army was chasing the LTTE, he didn't even know what was happening on the ground in 2007. He did not even allocate money for ammunitions. I was recruiting additional 85,000 army men. When I became commander I recruited 4,000 men in a month. Earlier only 3,000 people joined the army for a year.”

“I planned the entire operation and I was communicating with all levels of army persons.”