Abstract:
The foreign policy of Sri Lanka denotes the diplomatic relationships between Sri Lanka and other
nations. The foreign relationship of Sri Lanka has been changed depending on the policies of governors
and political parties and international, regional and local political dimension have also affected this
foreign relations of Sri Lanka. Due to the ethnic conflict that lasted for three decades, Sri Lanka faced
so many challenges in national and international level. In 2009 after the civil war was came to an end
there had been some challenges in the foreign relations of Sri Lanka too. Sri Lanka’s much attention on
developing the war time economy and sovereign political decision making power in local context were
the main reasons for these changes. In this case during post war period (2009-2015) the government of
Mahinda Rajapakshe has loosened the foreign relations with United States of America and European
countries and it has maintained the relationship with non-western countries like China, Russia…Etc.
This nature has paved way to earn hatred of United States of America and European countries and to
face many challenges in national and international level. The research problem of this study is to see
the challenges faced by Sri Lanka in maintaining the foreign relations with America and European
countries. The objective of this study is to find out what are the factors that affected foreign relations of
Sri Lanka with United States of America and European countries during 2009 to 2015 and also to
identify the challenges faced by Sri Lanka for following the foreign relations with America and
European countries. Further this study takes the form of qualitative analysis and the data was collected
from both primary and secondary sources. Hence the primary data was collected through interview and
discussion where previous researches, newspapers, books and statistics were used as secondary data
collection methods.
