The UK should give every opportunity to Sri Lanka to help them create a united country, a Conservative MP has said.
As MPs debated human rights in the Indian subcontinent, Brian Binley said the Sri Lankan government was coming to terms with the consequences of "very considerable strife and conflict", and that it was trying to make advances in addressing human rights abuses.
But MPs from both sides of the House expressed concern at the way Sri Lanka had conducted itself since the end of the conflict almost two years ago when the government declared victory.
Mr Binley, secretary of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Sri Lanka, told MPs on 15 September 2011 that the country needed a chance to heal, warning that this would not happen in an "atmosphere of hiatus and emotive external interventions".
He said: "They are trying to address the alleged crimes and human rights abuses, they are trying to provide a credible process for overcoming the issues facing internally displaced people and they are trying to achieve a sustainable political settlement."
"I hope that succeeds as we must all do," he said. "But I equally hope the independent inquiry [into violation of human rights laws] will take place because it will put to rest some of the propaganda that is actually hindering progress in that nation."
Labour's Siobhain McDonagh said Britain "must take a brave and principled lead... and do all that it can to ensure that a full independent international investigation of war crimes takes place".
"Sri Lanka still wants to host the Commonwealth summit in 2013," she said. "We should be clearly saying 'No, not until there is a fully independent, UN-led international inquiry'."
Conservative MP for Ilford North, Lee Scott, said "there must be justice for all in Sri Lanka… but that must include justice for the Tamil people, who must receive answers to some important questions".
Winding up the debate, Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt said allegations of war crimes and human rights violations committed by both sides in the conflict "are of great concern to us".
Sri Lanka had begun to address some of these issues but progress had not be completed everywhere, he said, adding that further action was needed to make peace sustainable.
The UN has released a report on the last months of Sri Lanka's decades-long war with Tamil Tiger rebels, accusing both sides of actions which it says led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians.
After a 10-month investigation, it concluded that "most civilian casualties in the final phases of the war were caused by government shelling".
Sri Lanka has rejected the report as biased and fraudulent, and is conducting its own inquiry.
