05-03-2004, 05:52 PM
What role can we play, India asks Sri Lanka
Chennai, May 3 (IANS) :
India is interested in lasting peace in Sri Lanka and had asked the island nation's new government what role New Delhi could play in the country's Norwegian-brokered peace process.
External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha said: "During my meeting with Sri Lanka's new foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in New Delhi (last week), he wanted India to play a direct role in the peace process.
"I asked him what sort of role he wants India to play and he promised to get back to me after consultations with his government," Sinha told a news conference here.
"We are interested in the peace process... so that Sri Lankan refugees here can go back to their country."
Sinha said a solution to the ethnic strife in Sri Lanka must come "from within the framework of an unified Sri Lanka and such a solution should come from forces" within that nation.
"No solution can be forced on them," he said.
A decision on a land bridge between Dhanushkodi in India and Thalaimannar in Sri Lanka and a ferry service between Tuticorin and Colombo would be taken only after peace returns to the island, Sinha said.
Asked if India had sought the extradition of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, he said New Delhi had made such a request to Sri Lanka several times.
Prabhakaran is wanted in India for the 1991 assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Chennai, May 3 (IANS) :
India is interested in lasting peace in Sri Lanka and had asked the island nation's new government what role New Delhi could play in the country's Norwegian-brokered peace process.
External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha said: "During my meeting with Sri Lanka's new foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in New Delhi (last week), he wanted India to play a direct role in the peace process.
"I asked him what sort of role he wants India to play and he promised to get back to me after consultations with his government," Sinha told a news conference here.
"We are interested in the peace process... so that Sri Lankan refugees here can go back to their country."
Sinha said a solution to the ethnic strife in Sri Lanka must come "from within the framework of an unified Sri Lanka and such a solution should come from forces" within that nation.
"No solution can be forced on them," he said.
A decision on a land bridge between Dhanushkodi in India and Thalaimannar in Sri Lanka and a ferry service between Tuticorin and Colombo would be taken only after peace returns to the island, Sinha said.
Asked if India had sought the extradition of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, he said New Delhi had made such a request to Sri Lanka several times.
Prabhakaran is wanted in India for the 1991 assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
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