Sept 1 (NIA) – Sri Lanka’s in-house expertise on defeating terrorists can be of immense benefit for the rest of the world especially in the post-IS age of widespread terror, Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary, Karunasena Hettiarachchi said here on Thursday.
Addressing the inaugural session of the ‘Colombo Defence Seminar – 2016’, which kicked off in the capital on Thursday, Hettiarachchi said that seven years after the end of war on terrorism, the country’s leadership had realized how important it was to share the knowledge gained over the decades with the international community.
Sri Lankan forces fought a 30 year civil war against Tamil Tiger rebels which ended in May 2009 with the defeat of the rebels.
Hettiarachchi said that in today’s world ‘soft power’ was more critical than ever to securing national interests since building of friendship and understanding between peoples enhances a state’s security, underpinning peaceful co-existence.
He explained that ‘Soft power’ was a state’s ability to influence the actions of others through persuasion or attraction, rather than coercion.
“In 2014 the Chinese President Xi Jinping highlighted the importance of increasing Chinese soft power to better communicate China’s messages to the world, in order to challenge the growing debate on “China Threat” and pose itself as a benign power. Importantly, soft power is more than just the ability to influence others.”
