Sri Lanka presidential hopeful says won't honour deal with UN

A former Sri Lankan defense chief who is a front-runner in next month's presidential election said Tuesday that if he wins, he won't recognize an agreement the government made with the UN human rights council to investigate alleged war crimes during the nation's civil war.

If Gotabaya Rajapaksa wins the November 16 election and follows through with his comments, it would be a severe setback to Sri Lanka's post-war reconciliation process.

"We will always work with the United Nations, but I can't recognize what they have signed" with past Sri Lankan governments, Rajapaksa said at a news conference.

"We have already rejected that, as a party we have rejected that agreement and in public we have rejected that. ... On this issue, our policies and the present government policies are far apart," he said.

Rajapaksa was the top defense official during the last few years of the long civil war, which ended in 2009, serving under his brother, then-President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

Under their watch, ..