Wednesday, 23 January 2013 15:24
Lanka News Web
Sri
Lankan External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris Tuesday said his government was
trying to resolve political issues concerning the island country's Tamils.
Peiris said Sri
Lanka was trying to include Tamil National Alliance (TNA) into the process to
resolve the issues. "We are trying to bring TNA into the process. Hope it
will happen sooner than later," Peiris said.
Answering
queries after delivering a lecture, 'The rise of Asia and Sri Lanka's role', at
the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses here, Peiris said the government
was ready with the Parliament Select Committee of various parties and hoped the
TNA would agree to join it.
"The
way forward is an all-inclusive process," the minister said.
He
said successive Sri Lankan governments had made legislative efforts to resolve
the political issue concerning Tamils but failed because of lack of adequate
support for implementation.
The
minister said the Sri Lankan government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa was
trying "to do something that will work on the ground".
TNA
is the main Tamil voice in the Sri Lankan parliament and was earlier seen as
political arm of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
Sri
Lanka waged war on the LTTE, leading to its destruction May 2009.
In
an interview with IANS, Suresh Premachandran, an MP of TNA, accused the Sri
Lankan government of not being sincere about talking to Tamil representatives,
and expressed apprehensions about the parliamentary select committee agreeing
to its suggestions.
He
said the committee was dominated by Sinhalese parties and "they will never
agree to anything we suggest".
Premachandran
had also accused the Rajapaksa government of militarising Sri Lanka's Tamil
dominated north and allowing security forces to have a stranglehold over the
vast region where the Tigers once held sway.
He
said Sri Lanka's northern province was now like Palestine, "an occupied
territory".
Peiris,
in his lecture, said that the "(United Nations) Human Rights Council had
become more politicised than the earlier human rights commission".
Although
the war against the Tamil Tigers ended in 2009, Sri Lanka still battles
allegations of human rights abuses. Colombo routinely denies the charges.
Peiris
said the Sri Lankan economy was growing rapidly since the war ended and was
registering a seven percent GDP growth.
He
said Sri Lanka had endeavoured to strike an equilibrium between economic
development and preservation of environment.
He
lauded India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
(MGNREGS) and said it had allowed the poor among the rural population to
purchase minimum essentials.
The
minister said India had helped expand the rail network in Sri Lanka. Many
countries in the region faced the challenge of terrorism, Peiris said and added
there was need for greater economic cooperation between countries in south
Asia.
Raising
the issue of piracy, he said there was no international tribunal to deal with
the issue.
"(There
was) no machinery at international level to take into account the whole
issue."
Asked
about some parties in Tamil Nadu opposing India giving training to Sri Lankan
military personnel, Peiris said that India had not rescinded military cooperation
between the two countries.
He
said the military cooperation was "very urgent today" because of
emerging challenges in the region.
Courtesy
- daijiworld.com
