Parties Agree To Stay Off Sri Lanka

There was a consensus at the all-party meeting convened by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee yesterday on India's stand of not intervening militarily in Sri Lanka's ethnic strife.

The parties have also arrived at a consensus that India should not give recognition to the LTTE cause of carving out a separate Eelam state in Sri Lanka.

The parties have reiterated that any settlement of the Lankan problem should ensure the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lanka, keeping in view with the sentiments of the Tamil people.

After the meeting, Vajpayee said India had not received any specific request from the Lankan government so far.

 

Congress spokesperson Margaret Alva asked the government about the `nature of help' that was sought by the Lankan government from the Indian government.

She said the government must take all parties into confidence before it makes any commitment to Sri Lanka.

Apart from the Prime Minister, the meeting was attended by home minister L K Advani, external affairs minister Jaswant Singh, parliamentary affairs minister Pramod Mahajan, power minister P R Kumaramangalam, T R Balu of the DMK, Vaiko of the MDMK, Yerran Naidu of the Telugu Desam.

From the Opposition, Pranab Mukherjee and Manmohan Singh represented the Congress, Indrajit Gupta the CPI, Somnath Chatterjee the CPI (M), Janeshwar Mishra the Samajwadi Party, Jayanti Natarajan the TMC.

Jaswant Singh later said India would mediate in the Sri Lankan crisis only if both parties _ the government there and the LTTE _ request it to do so.

He said the visit of Indian Air Force chief A Y Tipnis to Colombo was planned much earlier and had nothing to do with the ongoing crisis in Sri Lanka.

On the government's attitude to possible help from Pakistan towards the crisis, Singh said it was a matter between Pakistan and Sri Lanka. India is, however, keeping in touch with the Norway government which has offered to mediate.

Perhaps the only voice at the meeting which reflected a different sentiment was that of MDMK's Vaiko, who said the situation in Sri Lanka might not be static and that a Bangladesh like situation could arise.

He was obviously referring to a possibility of Tamil militants declaring Jaffna as a Tamil Eelam. Vaiko's party, incidentally, has supported the separate Eelam demand.

To this, T H Pandian of AIADMK said Vaiko was not reflecting the opinion of the people of Tamil Nadu

He said there was a clear change in Tamil opinion in his state after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by LTTE activists. He recalled how it was his leader J Jayalalitha who had banned the LTTE in Tamil Nadu following the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.