Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may not attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet in Sri Lanka, reported sources.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh may not attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meet in Sri Lanka, reported sources. “The decision would be announced either later on Saturday or the following day,” a source told IANS.
The Congress Core Committee headed by party president Sonia Gandhi met on Friday for over an hour to take a final decision on the prime minister’s trip to Sri Lanka.
“A decision will be taken keeping in mind the interests of Tamils in Sri Lanka, the overwhelming opinion expressed for and against by the political parties in Tamil Nadu and strategic and national interests of the country, the view of the newly-elected chief minister of Tamil-majority province,” party spokesman Randip Singh Surjewala told reporters in New Delhi.
If the prime minister goes to Sri Lanka, then he would visit both Colombo and Jaffna, the capital of Tamil-majority Northern Province which the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) rules.
The new chief minister of the province, C.V. Wigneswaran, has invited the prime minister to visit Jaffna, the Tamil heartland.
There has been strong opposition from political parties in Tamil Nadu, including the DMK and AIADMK, to Manmohan Singh attending the Commonwealth summit.
Critics of Sri Lanka say that Colombo committed “war crimes” against innocent Tamils during the final stages of the war that destroyed the LTTE in May 2009.
The Sri Lankan regime has also been accused of going back on promises to give autonomy to Tamil areas.
Building up pressure, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa Friday wrote another letter to Manmohan Singh condemning the “repeated harassment” of Tamil fishermen by the Sri Lankan Navy and its “highhanded belligerence”.
IANS
