Visiting Indian delegation urges devolution of powers

by admin
Apr 16, 2012

Photograph Daily Mirror

A cross party delegation of Indian officials urged the Sri Lankan government to devolve powers to the Tamils, during talks held with Basil Rajapaksa, members of the TNA and the Sri Lankan Muslim Congress.

The Indian delegation, headed by Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj, included members from Congress, BJP, JD(U), SP and BJD. Two political parties from Tamil Nadu, AIADMK and DMK, withdrew their support for the visit, calling it futile.

See here for report by The Hindu and The Hindustan Times.

Speaking to PTI, Congress MP, Manicka Tagore, said,

"The delegation told the foreign minister that the issue has to be resolved through political means. In this context, we stressed the need for implementing 13th Amendment under the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord which envisages devolution of powers to north and eastern provinces,"

Stating that the resolution of the Tamil question was not possible without foreign intervention, the leader of the TNA, R. Sampanthan, said,

“We are for re-commencing the talks,”

“The issue is that both sides should have faith in the talks. The government should come forward,"

Add new comment

About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.

Restricted HTML

  • You can align images (data-align="center"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • You can caption images (data-caption="Text"), but also videos, blockquotes, and so on.
  • Global and entity tokens are replaced with their values. Browse available tokens.
  • You can embed media items (using the <drupal-media> tag).

We need your support

Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist. Tamil journalists are particularly at threat, with at least 41 media workers known to have been killed by the Sri Lankan state or its paramilitaries during and after the armed conflict.

Despite the risks, our team on the ground remain committed to providing detailed and accurate reporting of developments in the Tamil homeland, across the island and around the world, as well as providing expert analysis and insight from the Tamil point of view

We need your support in keeping our journalism going. Support our work today.

link button