50 Turkish terrorists in the country : Turkish Ambassador

Colombo (News 1st): The Divaina newspaper reported that the Ambassador to Turkey had warned Sri Lankan authorities that 50 members of a terrorist organization in Turkey had entered the island. The Police terrorist investigations division is conducting investigations on 16 suspects arrested in connection to the string of bombings on Easter Sunday. A majority of them had received training in Turkey. UNP MP Wasantha Senanayake had this to say;

"Actually they should question the Ambassador to Turkey and not me. Because he is the same ambassador who was there even back then. He claims that this list was presented back in 2015. In the list that was presented, he warns that there are 50 Islamic terrorists from Turkey and 10 other organizations. As a government minister, I received this information and it was presented to the Defence Ministry, however, the same answer was always given - We will take the final decision regarding this, we will put this forward to the security council and take necessary actions. Now the ambassador is saying that he was informed that they cannot proceed because there are interventions from two Muslim parliamentarians. The former secretary to the ministry of foreign affairs said that we should not repeat this as this a powerful country from the west and this will create a rift. The secretary said that there is an intervention from that country to refrain from banning this group. According to the ambassador there were a number of people in the Madrasa schools. He said that the minds of the children are changed through this."