No information, however, was made available on the exact time schedule of the visit by the USA’s Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Wells who is scheduled to arrive here on Monday also for top level interactions with the Government on all aspects of Sri Lanka-US relations. She will travel to Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan from January 13-22, the US embassy in Colombo said yesterday.
Wells who will be in Sri Lanka from January 13-14 is to meet with senior government officials and members of civil society to discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues, including shared interests in a free and open Indo-Pacific region that fosters prosperity, democracy, justice, and human rights. Wells will then travel to New Delhi, India, from January 15-18.Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi is scheduled to meet a number of senior leaders of the government including his Sri Lankan counterpart Dinesh Gunawardena at the Foreign Relations Ministry.
Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov is scheduled to arrive in Sri Lanka on January 14 morning and will meet the President, Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister during his stay in Colombo. The Russian and Sri Lanka Foreign Ministers will hold a joint press conference on Tuesday afternoon before Lavrov departs for New Delhi. Lavrov’s very first posting as a career diplomat in the 1970s was in the Soviet Embassy in Sri Lanka.