India to engage Lankan Tamil parties on ethic solution: report

I / Colombo June 11, 2010, 16:45 IST

India plans to directly invite Sri Lankan ethnic parties, including the pro-LTTE TNA, for parleys to resolve the Tamil issue in the country, a media report has claimed, prompting the main opposition party to seek a clarification from the Mahinda Rajapaksa government.

News website Asian Tribune.Com has claimed that India will be directly inviting Sri Lankan Tamil political parties to New Delhi for one-on-one talks.

"There is a talk that India will invite minority and minor parties for discussions on the Tamil issue. We are hopeful of such meetings but so far no parties have got any invitation in this regard," a leader of a Muslim party told PTI on condition of anonymity.

"It is also reported that top officials in New Delhi are now preparing to draft reform proposals based on the findings from these discussions. They will thereafter present them to Colombo," the Asian Tribune said.

Reports from Delhi said that the main reason for the direct invitations is the continuous delay on the side of Colombo to produce solutions for Tamil grievances despite the end of war for more than a year, it is learnt, it said.

"The invites for discussions will be directly extended to all ethnic minority parties in Colombo. They will made after the official visit of Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse to New Delhi concludes," the website said.

All Lanka minority ethnic parties will be invited, reports said. The first political party to be invited is the Tamil National Alliance, followed by other ethnic-minority parties," it said.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka's main opposition United National Party has sought clarification on whether India was inviting the country's minority parties for direct talks to resolve the Tamil issue, even while demanding major political parties also be included in this exercise.

Raising the issue in Parliament, senior UNP leader Ravi Karunanayake demanded that major Sri Lankan political parties should also be included in the overall deliberations as they too represented the minorities.

Karunanayake said, he as a Parliamentarian from the Colombo district, also represented the interests of Tamils and Muslims (who also speak Tamil) besides other minorities.

"Any move to exclude the major political parties and to discuss the issue with only minority parties is fraught with danger and could give rise to the earlier situation years ago when arms were also given to the minority parties while holding parleys," Karunanayake told the House.

"That situation can recur", Karunanayake said, while asking the government to ensure that in the event of India undertaking such an exercise should also hold discussions on the issue with major political parties of Sri Lanka.

"Even political parties representing the Plantation Tamils in the country will be included, it is reported," the website said.