Prime Minister Wickremesinghe said that the first draft of the new counter terrorism law will be available by next week, the New Zealand radio station Newstalk ZB reported.

He made this observation after meeting with his New Zealand counterpart John Key in Wellington.

Before the meeting between the two Prime Ministers, Amnesty International had pressured Key to discuss human rights with Wickremesinghe during the talks, pointing out that Sir Lankan security forces have been implicated in tens of thousands of disappearances.

Executive director of Amnesty New Zealand Grant Bayldon said he wants Key to push for Sri Lanka to repeal its Prevention of Terrorism Act which "is basically a license to abduct and torture people."

"It also needs a law to make disappearances illegal, and it needs to work much harder to investigate those disappearances," Bayldon said.

Following the meeting with Key, Wickremesinghe said that the Sri Lankan government is going through most of the things it has promised to achieve, including setting up a missing persons office.

"I think by next week the first draft of the counter-terrorism law, which will be placed in the Prevention of Terrorism Act, will be available for discussion," he said.

The Prime Minister said the country is cleaning up its act when it comes to human rights abuses.

Prime Minister Wickremesinghe hopes by next March all these things will be behind Sri Lanka. He said it's a quite open society these days, where fear is no longer a factor.