Perth: Vice-President Hamid Ansari arrived
here today to participate in the Commonwealth Heads of
Government meeting where India is set to oppose setting up of
a human rights monitor and reject any move to reconsider Sri
Lanka as a venue of the next summit.
Ansari, who is standing in for Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh at the summit, is expected to underline that the
grouping stay focussed on development challenges faced by
member nations and strengthen existing institutions.
Ansari and his wife Salma were received at the airport
here by Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith and Brenden
Grills, the Regional Development Minister of Western
Australia.
India has made it clear at official level meetings that
one of the recommendations of the 11-member Eminent Persons
Group on setting up of a rights monitor amounted to
duplication of what the UN has been doing through its
rapporteurs.
On demands by a section of members to reconsider Sri
Lanka as the host of the next CHOGM summit, Ansari a decision
to hold the next CHOGM in Sri Lanka was already taken in 2009.
"Well, as far as we are concerned, the decision to have
the next CHOGM in 2013 was taken at the meeting in Port of
Spain.
That is a decision and that is the end of the matter,"
Ansari told reporters accompanying him to Perth.
The demands for change in venue of the next summit in Sri
Lanka has been raised by an influential section of members who
have questioned the island nation's record on alleged war
crimes during its fight against LTTE.
PTI
First Published: Thursday, October 27, 2011, 13:19