Leader of Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC), Prominent Muslim political party in Sri Lanka, Rauff Hakeem has sharply criticized the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for its refusal to name Israel in its recent statement following the Israeli attack on Qatar, calling it an act of “recklessness, tomfoolery, and vicarious criminality.”
Issuing a statement, Hakeem said that while he was attending the World Islamic Solidarity Conference on Palestine in Tehran, with representatives from more than 50 countries, he was dismayed to read the official response issued by Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry on the attack.
“The Ministry has once again demonstrated how incapable it is of distinguishing between an occupier and the occupied, or between an air attack and an incident,” Hakeem charged, accusing the government of showing “tactical or strategic collusion” with the Netanyahu administration.
He said Sri Lanka’s official statement failed to uphold even the minimum standards of ethical or moral governance that the government often claims under its so-called ‘Clean Sri Lanka’ project, exposing instead its double standards when it comes to Israel.
“Any reasonable-minded reader of the Foreign Ministry’s statement would conclude that it is nothing but an Israeli hand in the Foreign Ministry or in the government that drafts such statements,” Hakeem alleged.
Hakeem warned that Sri Lanka’s silence on Israel’s actions undermines vital relations with Qatar and the Gulf region. “We need Qatar for labour migration, investment, trade, and tourism,” he said, adding that countries such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain also play critical roles in supporting Sri Lanka’s economy and diplomatic efforts at the UN Human Rights Council.
The SLMC leader said it was a “poignant reality” that even when one of these countries comes under direct air attack, the Sri Lankan government shows “no audacity to name the aggressor,” despite the global community condemning Israel’s actions.
Calling the government’s conduct “apathetic, one-sided and distorted,” Hakeem concluded that Sri Lanka’s foreign policy establishment was turning the country into a “strikingly incidental state.”
