The US Assistant Secretary of State on South and Central Asia has said that his country has worked with India all through the procedure on the US-sponsored Sri Lankan resolution at the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC),
The Assistant Secretary of State , Robert Blake, told the BBC Sinhalese service in an interview, “We worked very closely with India throughout the process and we indeed welcomed some of the changes that India made,"
He further added "So we were quite satisfied with the cooperation that we had with India, and I think going forward it will be very important for all of the international community to continue to work with India to encourage progress, since India has quite a lot of influence on the island,"
However, Blake negated the feeling that the UNHRC passed the US-sponsored resolution under the influence of Indian government and maintained that Sri Lanka has to take expressive action on settlement and responsibility for maintaining peace and prosperity in that country.
He reiterated that US and international community is not trying to create a division in that island but is interested to keep it unified.
It can be done by tackling the grave human rights violations in that country with responsible attitude. He impressed that the forward progress be made on vital issues such as holding of elections in the Northern Provincial Council in the country in Sept, 2013 as promised. It is essential to maintain dialogue with the Tamil National Alliance for reaching an agreement on the issue of devolution.