People smuggling at top of Peter Dutton’s agenda during visit to Sri Lanka
Colombo: Australia’s Home Affairs Minister, Peter Dutton, held high-level meetings in Sri Lanka yesterday, with people smuggling at the top of the agenda.
Mr Dutton met Sri Lanka’s President Maithripala Sirisena, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and his ministerial counterpart in Colombo on Tuesday.
“The purpose of the visit is to prosecute Operation Sovereign Borders’ interests and to engage Sri Lankan authorities on counter-terrorism matters,” Mr Dutton’s spokesperson told News Corp Australia.
“We greatly value the ongoing cooperation on regional maritime security.”
It comes after a boat carrying 20 Sri Lankan asylum seekers was intercepted off Australia last week.
Mr Dutton has said the boat left in early May and claimed the voyage was a test of “what people thought was going to be a Labor administration”.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese rejected the claim, noting that 10 asylum seekers boats had come from Sri Lanka on the Coalition’s watch and suggesting the terrorist attacks at Easter may have prompted the boat.
The asylum seekers were returned by plane to Sri Lanka via Christmas Island, although Mr Dutton has denied they were detained there.
Mr Dutton, who arrived in Sri Lanka on Monday for a two-day visit, laid a wreath at the altar of St Sebastian’s church, one of the three churches and three hotels hit in the Easter Sunday suicide bombings on 21 April. The attacks left 257 dead, 113 of them at St Sebastian’s. Mr Dutton said Australia would also help Sri Lanka rebuild after the attacks.