Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Tuesday said that she was willing to create a platform for dialogue, but will not sanction an independent investigation into police actions during the political crisis that has rocked the city for almost three months.
Lam said her administration would immediately work on setting up a means of finding a solution to the civil unrest triggered by her now-shelved extradition bill, which would have allowed criminal suspects to be sent to mainland China, the South China Morning Post reported.
Early on Tuesday, Lam said, “All my principal officials and I are committed to listening to what the people have to tell us”.
“I think it is a very sincere expression for my hope to sincerely dialogue with various sectors of the society”, she added.
Lam said she would start with approaching people who in the past had proposed talks, and her remarks came two days after hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets in a peaceful mass demonstration that passed without any violence or clashes with the police.
Last month, a group of Hong Kong leader had dismissed Carrie Lam offers of a private meeting about the protests over china extradition bill that has been suspended, for now, and called it “too little, too late”.
Carrie Lam was appointed as Hong Kong’s leader by a committee dominated by pro-Beijing elites, suspended the legislation indefinitely after a huge protest over controversial china extradition.
Earlier in June, Lam apologised for the political unrest that has shaken Hong Kong.
The Chinese government had supported the extradition proposal and accused protest organisers of colluding with Western governments. It had denounced expressions of support for the Hong Kong protesters as interference in the city — and China’s — internal affairs.