New Delhi invites Lankan Tamil parties for talks

Colombo, Sept 24: Amid call by wide spectrum of people for pro-active Indian role in resolving Sri Lanka's prolonging ethnic conflict, India has invited leaders of some Tamil political parties to New Delhi for consultations this week.

According to top Tamil party sources, leaders of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), and Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF-Varathan faction) had been invited to New Delhi for the meetings this week.

''We are asked to come to New Delhi for meetings with Indian South Block and we are going this week. We do not know immediately the list of people whom we are going to meet,'' a PLOTE official told sources over the phone.

Commenting on their visit, the PLOTE official said New Delhi ''seemed to have started a process of wider consultations not only with Tamil parties but also with other political parties in Sri Lanka, including the radical Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU)'' ''While reiterating our call for greater Indian involvement in the peace process, we will explain New Delhi the hardships faced by the Tamil speaking communities in the North-East,'' he said.

''We will insist India to find a viable and permanent solution as it has a better knowledge and understanding on the prolonging conflict here,'' the PLOTE official said on condition of anonymity.

India's call for meetings with these anti-LTTE Tamil parties have come at a time when a five-member delegation of the four-party Tamil National Alliance (TNA), well-known as proxies of the LTTE in Sri Lankan parliament, held discussions with India's National Security Advisor M K Narayanan, Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed and Foreign Secretary-designate Shivshankar Menon in New Delhi last week.

However, their desire to meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has not materialised as yet despite their repeated efforts.

Addressing a press conference in Colombo yesterday, a senior TNA parliamentarian said that the party would continue its efforts for an audience with the Indian Prime Minister to apprise him of the current situation in Sri Lanka.

''We have not been given reasons why Dr Singh could not meet our delegation members. We hope we would soon get an appointment,'' TNA's Jaffna district parliamentarian Natarajah Ravi Raj said.

UNI

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