Sri Lanka, a close ally of China, said Thursday it would not send a representative to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo for jailed Chinese dissident writer Liu Xiaobo.
"As of now, our position is not to attend the ceremony," Media Minister Keheliya Rambukwella told reporters. "We are not the only country that took up that position, there are lots of countries that are not attending the event."
Rambukwella declined to give reasons, but a Sri Lankan foreign ministry official said the decision was taken in the light of Colombo's warm diplomatic relations with China.
China has called for a global boycott of Friday's event and threatened "consequences" for countries that show their support for Liu.
China is Sri Lanka's biggest lender and was a key supplier of small arms during the island government's conflict with Tamil Tigers rebels that ended in May 2009.
Liu, a writer and academic who has advocated human rights and political reform in China for more than two decades, was jailed in December 2009 for 11 years on subversion charges.
An empty chair and a photograph will represent Liu at the ceremony in Norway.
About 20 countries — including Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, and China itself — have decided to miss the event.
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