Several prominent human rights groups are now calling on Japan, as Sri Lanka's top aid donor, to apply such pressure on Colombo.

VOA: standard.2009.05.11

"The timeline that we've talked about is actually,in a sense that, if I were to use the surge in Iraq, look where we are right now, sort of apply the same kind of timeline to Afghanistan, as best we can tell, and we think that's reasonable, in terms of having the impact, and then being able to thin our forces out and bring them back".

VOA: standard.2009.11.04