ஈழத்தமிழா அடிமைத்தளையை அங்கீகரி - இந்தியா

Be pragmatic and move on, India tells TNA
July 9, 2010, 12:00 pm
by S Venkat Narayan, Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI, July 9: India has advised visiting Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarians to accept the current realities in Sri Lanka, to be pragmatic, to move on, and work sincerely with President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s government to find an enduring political solution to the ethnic problem.
A six-member TNA team led by R. Sampanthan arrived here on Sunday evening, met several top Indian leaders, called on Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Thursday, and flew back to Colombotonight.
TNA MP Appadorai Vinayagamoorthy told The Island this afternoon: "We are thoroughly satisfied with our visit to India, and with our talks with the leaders and officials here."
"The Indian government has assured us that it will work along with the TNA. Fourteen of the 18 MPs elected from the Northern and Eastern provinces belong to TNA. We are the true representatives of the Tamil people," he asserted.

The TNA MP said: "We depend hundred per cent on India for help to find a political solution acceptable to our people. We will be happy if President Mahinda Rajapaksa gives us what India thinks is reasonable."

Vinayagamoorthy said: "Prime Minister Dr Singh advised us to take along with us the Muslims, the upcountry Tamils and others and work unitedly with President Rajapaksa to evolve a solution to the Tamil problem. We told him we will try to do so."
Apart from meeting Dr Singh, the TNA team called on External Affairs Minister SM Krishna, Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and met Foreign Secretary Mrs Nirupama Rao.

Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India Prasad Kariyawasam hosted a dinner for the team. Appreciating the gesture, the MPs told the envoy: "We are honoured to be invited by you. We are happy to attend your dinner as Sri Lankan parliamentarians."

This is perhaps for the first time that the Sri Lankan high commissioner here hosted a dinner for MPs from the North and East ever since the LTTE began its bloody campaign for Eelam, a separate state for the island’s minority Tamils, in 1983.

The Island understands from people who interacted with the TNA MPs that, in the wake of the LTTE’s defeat in the so-called Eelam War IV in May last year, President Rajapaksa’s impressive re-election for a second term, and the near two-third majority that his coalition garnered in the parliamentary election early this year, the visitors appeared to be coming to terms, slowly but definitely, with the changed political realities in Sri Lanka today.
One such source told The Island: "The Indians advised them to get real and drop the rhetoric and the mindset of the 1970s and 1980s. The Sri Lanka of today is very different from what it was three decades ago. Instead of fighting amongst themselves, the island’s Tamils should now unite and negotiate a pragmatic deal with President Rajapaksa. They should work with this President because he appears to be making a sincere effort to solve the ethnic problem for good."
Another source said the delegation conveyed to the Indians their three main concerns, namely
1. The high-security zones in Jaffna should be cut considerably if they cannot be dismantled completely;
2. The rehabilitation and resettlement efforts should be speeded up so that the internally displaced Tamils can go back to their original homes and resume their normal lives; and
3. The extensive presence of the all-Sinhala army in the Jaffna peninsula should be reduced drastically if it cannot be removed completely.
The Tamil MPs’ Indian interlocutors and the Sri Lankan diplomats they interacted with have assured them that the Rajapaksa government is taking suitable steps to address these concerns.
The other four members of the delegation are: Selvam Adaikalanathan, Mavai Senathiraja, M. A. Sumandhiran and Suresh Premachandran.
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