Australia congratulates Ranil on re-election

21 August 2015 09:29 am

Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop today congratulated Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on his re-election, following the peaceful parliamentary elections held on Monday.

Issuing a statement, she said that Australia was looking forward to work with Prime Minister Wickremesinghe’s government to further develop strong bilateral relationship and to address shared regional and global challenges.

“Australia has a close and long-standing bilateral relationship with Sri Lanka. We are working closely with Sri Lanka to grow trade and investment and increase cooperation on security and transnational crime, particularly countering people smuggling,” she said.

She also said that Australia would continue to support Sri Lanka as it makes progress on national reconciliation.