Sri Lanka is to skip the ceremony at which the Nobel Peace Prize is to be presented to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, a government official in Colombo said yesterday.
“The government has decided that Sri Lanka’s ambassador will not be accepting the invitation to attend the function,” a foreign ministry spokesman said without giving reasons.
The award ceremony for the Chinese dissident writer, who is serving an 11-year prison sentence for subversion, is scheduled for Friday in Oslo, Norway.
The boycott is seen as a move to show solidarity with the Chinese government.
China has become the biggest lender to Sri Lanka in support of development programmes after the end of the 26-year conflict with the Tamil rebels.
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