India has no indication about 13-A dilution or reversal, says Salman Khurshid
by S. Venkat Narayan
- Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI, November 4: India’s new External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid has made it clear that New Delhi has not received any indication to the effect that Sri Lanka plans to either dilute the 13th Amendment to its Constitution, or to reverse it.
Answering a question at a press conference at the end of the 12th meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation at Gurgaon near here on Friday evening, Khurshid said: "My understanding is that we would rather support the 13thAmendment, and that we have been given indications from time to time formally, officially, even privately, we have been given reaffirmation of the Thirteenth Amendment."
He added: "If anything, we have understood that there is a demand from one side for going beyond the Thirteenth Amendment and that the Thirteenth Amendment would not be adequate. This is my understanding of the distance between the two sides on moving forward. We have no indication whatsoever that there is an issue of dilution or a reversal of the 13th Amendment."
Khurshid went on: "The bottom line that we know is that the 13th Amendment stands, and the 13th Amendment is reaffirmed, but that there is now an expectation that has been placed that there is need to go beyond the 13th Amendment."
"How soon that is possible, if at all it is possible, what will be the procedure and the process that will be undertaken to examine this further, what will be its impact on the deadlines and dates that Sri Lanka has set for itself for elections in the Northern Province, which is sometime next year, this is the matter that we will have to watch and wait for," the minister pointed out.
Khurshid said this is an internal matter for Sri Lanka. "It of course has an implication for us, but it is an internal matter for that country."
Talking about his first meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart earlier on Friday, Khurshid said: "I would like to share with you that my meeting with the Sri Lanka Foreign Minister was a very rewarding meeting. It so happens that he is a senior of mine from Oxford, and perhaps Oxford people speak the same language.
"So, I may have understood his language better than I might have understood anyone else’s language. I did have a very rewarding and very satisfying meeting with him. I must say that we had a very candid and a very frank exchange of views, and an extremely helpful exchange of views."
