An Independent and Interactive Tamil Community Web Site

27-09-2006

India calls for "special efforts" to end Sri Lanka bloodshed

COLOMBO (AFP) - India called for "special efforts" to end the upsurge of violence in Sri Lanka and said New Delhi supported a political settlement that would not break up the island.

India's Youth Affairs and Sports Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said they had an "abiding interest" in the sovereignty, unity and the territorial integrity of the island republic, which lies off the south Indian coast.

"We believe that today more than ever before special efforts are required to strengthen the ceasefire," Aiyar said at a lecture to mark the 47th anniversary of the assassination of the island's premier Solomon Bandaranaike.

Violence since December in Sri Lanka has claimed the lives of at least 1,500 people, according to official count.

Aiyar said India supported moves for a "devolution package that could command consensus among the major political parties, restore ethnic harmony and expeditiously address the legitimate aspirations of all sections of Sri Lankan society."

He said he was also meeting with President Mahinda Rajapakse to discuss the Indian model of a devolution of power in the country, which has a large ethnic Sinhalese majority.

New Delhi is strongly backing efforts by Norway to broker peace in Sri Lanka where an Oslo-arranged truce has tenuously held since February 2002.

Over the past three decades more than 60,000 people have been killed in the island's conflict between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), ethnic Tamils fighting for a separate state for their minority.

Source-AFP