27 November 2019 07:12 pm
Sri Lanka's new interim government has dismissed a statement made by a leading official in the US State Department who has claimed that the controversial MCC agreement would be launched in Sri Lanka soon.
Government sources told Daily Mirror that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had instructed the relevant authorities under the Finance Ministry to review the MCC agreement and study its clauses in-depth and to renegotiate or reject any agreements which had objectionable or controversial clauses.
Foreign Minister Dinesh Gunawardena confirmed to Daily Mirror that the MCC agreement would be reviewed just like all the other agreements which had been signed or were under discussion by the previous government.
"All future agreements will be reviewed, renegotiated and then submitted to parliament. That is the norm which the previous government had ignored," Gunawardena said.
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia at the US State Department, Ambassador Alice Wells said that the US would soon launch the MCC agreement in Sri Lanka that would undertake the same kind of nitty-gritty reforms in land registration and motorway harmonisation that would help unlock economic development.
Criticising China for constructing the Hambantota Port, Wells said the US shared India's concerns over the projects that did not have an economic basis and led to countries ceding sovereignty. (JAMILA HUSAIN)