COLOMBO, July 15 (Reuters) - The speaker of parliament in crisis-hit Sri Lanka has accepted a resignation letter from President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, having verified its authenticity after it was flown from Singapore late on Thursday, he told reporters.

"From this point, we will move to constitutionally appoint a new president," the speaker, Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, said on Friday.

Rajapaksa arrived in Singapore following a stopover in the Maldives, after he fled Sri Lanka amid a wave of unrest as his island nation grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades. (Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe and Alasdair Pal; Writing by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)