Acknowledging that the 19th Amendment will not be the panacea for all problems in Sri Lanka, Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera expressed belief that the next parliament will introduce a new constitution.

Participating in the debate on the 19th Amendment on Tuesday, Samaraweera said the reduction of executive powers of the president was a vital step in the challenging journey the country faces. “I am hopeful that that new Parliament will do what many other governments attempted but failed to do - to introduce a new constitution, in fact ‘the Third Republican constitution’ of Sri Lanka,” he added.

Samaraweera added that the new constitution “will celebrate Sri Lanka’s ethnic, religious and cultural diversity and pluralism and meet the aspirations of all the peoples of Sri Lanka.”

“The root causes of ethnic conflict need to be addressed once and for all, constitutionally,” he stressed.