Atul Keshap: New US Envoy to Sri Lanka for ‘Federal Structure’
Soon to arrive in Colombo the United States ambassador to Sri Lanka, Atul Keshap, has already gone on record that the United States supports a federal structure as a catalyst for national reconciliation among the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority.
Mr. Keshap who is expected to present his credentials to President Maitripala Sirisena soon as America’s diplomatic envoy in Colombo made the authoritative declaration that this South Asian nation needs a federal structure to redress minority Tamil grievances when he was Deputy Assistant Secretary in the State Department’s South Asian Bureau – the next immediate official to Assistant Secretary Nisha Biswal. Previously, he was working very closely on Sri Lankan issues with Robert Blake when he was the assistant secretary of the South Asian Bureau. Mr. Blake was the US envoy in Colombo during the period the Sri Lanka military undertook the final assault on the Tamil Tiger movement.
