(COLOMBO) – Sri Lanka and Australia on Tuesday further endorsed the ‘Gold Standard’ cooperation of both countries on disrupting irregular maritime people smuggling and other transnational crimes.
Discussion towards this end was held between the Australian High Commissioner in Sri Lanka Paul Stephens and Defence Secretary General Kamal Gunaratne.
The outgoing Commander, Joint Agency Task Force (JATF) of Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB) Rear Admiral Justin Jones, newly appointed JATF Commander Rear Admiral Brett Sontor and the Australian Defence Advisor Captain Ian Cain also joined the Australian High Commissioner for the discussion.
Gen. Gunaratne expressed his sincere gratitude for Australia’s assistance in multiple spheres while specially thanking for the support rendered in mitigating the crisis of illegal migrants.
The High Commissioner highly appreciated the efforts initiated by the Sri Lankan Government on the prevention of illegal immigration as well as on-going assistance to the JATF-OSB on military-led border security operations.
Australia in the past has gifted high-tech maritime equipment including state of the art marine vessels to the island-nation to boost its off-shore patrols in a bid to combat illegal immigrants heading for the Australian Coast.
Following the end of fighting between Government security forces and separatist Tamil Tiger rebels in 2009 thousands of Sri Lankans, mainly ethnic Tamils from the north and east attempted the illegal sea crossings to the Australian Coast.
The majority of those illegal immigrants were deemed as economic refugees that had paid handsome fees to human traffickers for the voyage to Australia.
A large number of such refugee boats were intercepted by the Sri Lankan navy and the Australian Coast Guard and it discouraged human traffickers from this route.
