With the progress made in the recent months in restoring peace in Sri Lanka, there was no legitimate basis for any one to ask for refugee status citing safety claims, Minister of External Affairs Prof. G.L. Peiris said.
"The asylum seekers are economic migrants, not fearful refugees and there is no legitimate basis for an application of refugee status at all," he said in an interview with the Toronto Star.
Minister Peiris said those, who request for refugee status, lodge false claims to get greener pastures but not because their lives were under threat. “The changes which have come about in this country in recent months remove any fear on the part of a community of people, groups of people, or individuals of systematic persecution”, he said.