“We're not going to stand here and have our country misused.”
In this image made from video, New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters speaks during a news conference April 16 in Wellington, New Zealand. By Emily Tamkin Emily Tamkin Reporter covering foreign affairs Email Bio Follow April 30 at 9:22 AM New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters hit back at Sri Lanka’s junior defense minister’s claim that the Easter Sunday attacks on hotels and churches in Sri Lanka were carried out in retaliation for the shooting at a New Zealand mosque last month.
There may have been thematic similarities between the attacks, both of which targeted national religious minorities in their houses of worship, but that may have been all: Wijewardene declined to provide evidence that the one was in response to the other. And the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility, also issued last Tuesday, made no mention of New Zealand.
“It is possible [that Sunday’s attacks] could have been because of the Christchurch attacks,” Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said, adding, “We cannot say yet.” “Sometimes it pays to . . . get the facts first before you beat your lips with an opinion,” Peters went on, adding that there was a “fair chance” that the link had been made in the first place to distract from the Sri Lankan government and intelligence service’s own failure to stop the plot before it had been carried out.
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