Sri Lanka’s foreign relations with United States of America and European countries: study based on 2009-2015

Abstract

The foreign policy of Sri Lanka denotes the diplomatic relationships between Sri Lanka and other nations. The foreign relationship of Sri Lanka has been changed depending on the policies of governors and political parties and international, regional and local political dimension have also affected this foreign relations of Sri Lanka. Due to the ethnic conflict that lasted for three decades, Sri Lanka faced so many challenges in national and international level. In 2009 after the civil war was came to an end there had been some challenges in the foreign relations of Sri Lanka too. Sri Lanka’s much attention on developing the war time economy and sovereign political decision making power in local context were the main reasons for these changes. In this case during post war period (2009-2015) the government of Mahinda Rajapakshe has loosened the foreign relations with United States of America and European countries and it has maintained the relationship with non-western countries like China, Russia…Etc. This nature has paved way to earn hatred of United States of America and European countries and to face many challenges in national and international level. The research problem of this study is to see the challenges faced by Sri Lanka in maintaining the foreign relations with America and European countries. The objective of this study is to find out what are the factors that affected foreign relations of Sri Lanka with United States of America and European countries during 2009 to 2015 and also to identify the challenges faced by Sri Lanka for following the foreign relations with America and European countries. Further this study takes the form of qualitative analysis and the data was collected from both primary and secondary sources. Hence the primary data was collected through interview and discussion where previous researches, newspapers, books and statistics were used as secondary data collection methods.