Colombo (PTI): Sri Lanka will not permit visits to government-run IDP camps housing 2.8 lakh displaced Tamil civilians across the northern part of the country for personal or political gains.

"The government will allow any interested party or group to assist and help the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) currently located in the welfare centres in the North, but won't let anyone capitalise on their grievances," Media Minister Lakshman Yapa Abeywardena said.

Speaking to reporters here on Wednesday, Mr. Abeywardena said that there could be parties and NGOs demanding access to these camps with the intention of gaining political mileage or secure foreign funds for NGOs.

Such groups cannot be allowed because their intentions are not genuinely motivated to assist IDPs, he said adding that the step has been taken to prevent negative propaganda to be spread against the country for now.

Meanwhile, main opposition United National Party (UNP) senior leader and MP Gamini Jayawickrama Perera, MP Jayalath Jayawardene together with SLFP(M) group frontliner Mangala Samaraweera and Democratic People's Front Leader Mano Ganeshan and others, on Thursday filed a petition in the court stating that the government had refused to allow them to visit the IDPs in northern Sri Lanka.

There are several IDP camps in Vavuniya, Jaffna and Mannar accommodating thousands of persons who were displaced by the recently concluded war.

"The security forces are running the IDP camps with government assistance and the government has announced that it would resettle them soon," Mr. Abeywardena said.

The minister said that now that the war is over, resettlement and rehabilitation will commence soon even as the main Opposition UNP party wanted to "sabotage the process and tarnish the government's image."

However, the United Nations humanitarian wing has said that access to the IDP camps in Vavuniya has improved, though some delays are still being experienced.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a recent report that in addition to the improved access to the IDP camps in Vavuniya, an additional camp in the area has also begun functioning.