COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s president went back Wednesday on pledges to the UN Human Rights Council to investigate war-time atrocities, saying he did not want to “re-open old wounds”, reports AFP.

Sri Lankan government troops were accused of killing at least 40,000 ethnic Tamil civilians in the final months of the island’s 37-year guerrilla war that ended in May 2009.

President Maithripala Sirisena said he will formally ask the United Nations rights body to reconsider a 2015 resolution which called for credible investigations into alleged atrocities.