India should insist on Federal solution - Indian Tamil Daily

[TamilNet, Monday, 05 December 2005, 03:32 GMT]
"India should not hesitate to impress on Rajapakse Government that resolution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic problem should be based on a Federal solution,” said Tamil daily Dinamani in a recent editorial commenting on Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera’s meeting with India’s Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. “India should be cognizant that Tamil national question in Sri Lanka determines the human rights, social justice and political destiny of 3 million Tamils, and that more than 60 million Tamils in TamilNadu have an emotional stake in the issue,” said the daily.

The Indian Prime Minister has invited the Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse to visit India. The visit is expected to take place this month.

The paper said that Mr Samaraweera had told the Indian Prime Minister that Rajapakse Government is commited to the provisions of the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA), his government has called LTTE for talks, and that only if talks are inclusive and transparent that Sri Lankans will accept the results of any peace talks.

"This approach is hardly sufficient to make progress when last four years of CFA have not produced discernible changes towards finding a permanent solution. The key obstacle has been the absence of unity within the two major Sinhala parties,” the paper said.

"The new President has rejected the fundamental demand by the Tamils for a negotiated solution based on Federal concept. Communique issued jointly by the former Indian premier Mr Vajpayee and the Lankan Prime Minister Wickremesinghe in October 2003 stressed that while preserving unity and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka is important in any solution, it is equally important to base the solution on a federal structure,” the paper said, urging Dr Manmohan Singh to stand firm on advocating a Federal solution.