DHAKA: Australia’s new prime minister said on Monday he would attend a Commonwealth summit next month despite calls for a boycott over the human rights record of host Sri Lanka.

Conservative leader Tony Abbott indicated disagreement with Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, who does intend to shun the November 15-17 summit in Colombo over alleged abuses by Sri Lanka’s military during a decades-long fight against Tamil separatists.

Abbott offered fulsome backing for the 54-nation bloc after the shock withdrawal of Gambia, reports The Straits Times.

The recently elected Abbott was to hold a bilateral meeting with Harper later on Monday on the margins of a regional summit in Indonesia, and the Australian praised his Canadian counterpart as an ‘outstanding’ leader.

‘Whether he attends CHOGM is really a matter for him, but certainly I intend to attend CHOGM and will do my best to make a constructive contribution to the deliberations there,’ Abbott told reporters at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit.

BDST: 1628 HRS, OCT 07, 2013
RoR/JCK