We should not listen to India on 13 A - Gotabaya
TUESDAY, 02 JULY 2013
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Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said today that Sri Lanka should not listen to India with regard to the implementation of the 13th Amendment as the national problem was inherently one that should be solved by Sri Lankans.“We should not listen to India on this; this doesn’t meant that we lose the relationship we have with India. But if there is a problem it should only be solved by Sri Lankans and not India,” he said.
He said the national question should have a homegrown solution — and the debate about 13th Amendment should not affect the relations between the two countries.
“India is our friend and we need to continue the good relations. This should not be an issue to strain our relationship, and I’m of the view that India understands that. They should understand that this is inherently a Sri Lankan issue and we have to address it with a solution that we devise” he said,
Rajapaksa said the “alienation of provinces based on ethnicity” was not the solution to the ethnic issue.
“This is not the solution; and it has failed. There are Tamils living in all parts of the country and Muslims too — so what about them? How does the Provincial Council system solve their problems? I believe in the decentralisation of administration; but I don’t believe that areas should be demarcated according to ethnicity, religion, caste or creed. This country belongs to all Sri Lankans and we have to think in those terms,” he said. (Hafeel Farisz)
Jun 30, 2013,
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka will send President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s younger brother Basil Rajapaksa to Delhi to hold talks with Indian leadership over its controversial plan to tinker with the India-moved thirteenth amendment (13A), government sources today said.
Basil Rajapaksa, the minister of economic development and the key political advisor to his brother, would leave Colombo on July 4.
* Minister Basil Rajapaksa to hold talks with India on Sri Lanka's constitutional amendments
Sun, Jun 30, 2013, 11:58 pm SL Time, ColomboPage News Desk, Sri Lanka.
June 30, Colombo: Sri Lanka’s Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa will leave for India this week to appraise the Indian leaders of proposed revisions to the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.
Basil Rajapaksa, the younger brother of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa and an adviser to him will leave for New Delhi on July 4, Press Trust of India reported citing government sources.
Minister Rajapaksa is expected to meet India’s External Affairs Minister Salman Kurshid and National Security Advisor Shivashankar Menon to brief on the political situation including matters relating to the proposed amendments to the 13th Amendment.
Sri Lankan parliament appointed a parliamentary select committee (PSC) to study the issue of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution which was thrusted upon Sri Lanka by India during the height of the war against Tamil Tiger terrorists in 1987 as a solution to the ethnic problem.
However, after the end of the war, the campaign in Sri Lanka to repeal the provincial council system brought into existence by the 13th Amendment is growing momentum as the major Tamil party, Tamil National Alliance, is refusing to participate in a Parliamentary Select Committee proposed by the government to devolve power.
Several parties allied with the government have called for abolishing the Amendment and the Cabinet recently decided to appoint a PSC to discuss revisions to the 13th Amendment due to the divergent views of the coalition members.
India has expressed concern over Sri Lanka’s developments to abolish or amend the 13th Amendment and following a visit to New Delhi by the TNA, which opposes any moves of the government to change the 13 A, Khurshid has stressed that Colombo should not unilaterally move against the amendment.
It has been reported that India’s National Security Advisor Shivashankar Menon would visit Sri Lanka on July 8th to discuss the issue among other matters of interest.
