Colombo, Jun 23 (PTI) The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk arrived in Sri Lanka on Monday, the first visit by a UN rights chief to the island nation in nearly a decade.
Turk, an Austrian lawyer, is here on a three-day visit, according to the Foreign Ministry.
His predecessor, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, visited Sri Lanka nine years ago in February 2016.
Turk will meet with Sri Lanka's top leadership, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, as well as Opposition leaders, religious leaders and members of the island nation's Human Rights Commission.
During his visit, Turk will also visit Jaffna in the north, Kandy in the central province and Trincomalee in the east, according to officials.
The ministry said he will meet a group of protestors at Chemmani, a reported mass grave site in the northern Jaffna district.
Turk's visit comes comes ahead of the next UNHRC session scheduled to be held in September.
Since 2012, the UNHRC has extensively questioned the lack of accountability on part of the Sri Lankan government as well as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for past human rights violations during the country’s three-decade long civil war that ended in 2009.
The LTTE fought the armed conflict for a separate homeland for the minority Tamils.
Then-UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon also visited Sri Lanka immediately after the conflict's end.