Mantra for March!

Thursday, 13 February 2014 00:25 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

India tells Lanka: Don’t get isolated
Colombo should not be oversensitive, world should not be over-reactive: Khurshid
Indian Foreign Minister urges Sri Lankan leadership to avoid hostility from ‘countries that matter
30 year war not an excuse for waiting another 30 years; cannot allow conflict to re-emerge
Says ‘great, great harm’ if India loses friendship with Sri Lanka

Dharisha Bastians reporting from New Delhi Striking a cautionary note, India has urged the Sri Lankan Government to steer clear of isolation and avoid hostility from countries that matter, as Colombo gears up for a major international battle over its human rights record next month. “Sri Lanka must find a middle road that satisfies the world,” Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid told a delegation of Sri Lankan journalists in New Delhi yesterday. He said that while India has always favoured engagement with Sri Lanka, it was important that Colombo find ways to communicate its perspective in a transparent and credible way. “It is important we take the world with us, including those who are cynical. There are enough people in the world who understand reason, we should reason with them transparently, openly without allowing our egos to come in the way,” the Minister advised as the Sri Lankan Government steps up lobbying efforts ahead of the UN Human Rights Council sessions in March. The Indian Government has supported US-backed resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council in 2012 and 2013 and its reaction has become crucial as calls mount for a third resolution this year that sets up an international mechanism to investigate the final phase of the war in 2009. Addressing the delegation at South Block, where the Indian External Affairs Ministry is housed, Minister Khurshid said Sri Lanka needs to seek greater understanding from the world, not as ‘excuse, alibi or escape’ but as part of a process. “Colombo should not be too sensitive and the world should not be over-reactive,” the Minister cautioned. Asked if New Delhi believed resolution after resolution at the UNHRC was productive to the process of reconciliation in the island, Khurshid noted that throughout the process, the Indian Government had tried to remain sensitive to Sri Lanka’s concerns without encouraging Colombo to get isolated or getting isolated itself against the world community. But the Indian Foreign Minister echoed sentiments expressed elsewhere that Sri Lanka had lingered too long on moving the reconciliation and accountability process forward, five years after the end of the war. “Everyone knows that a difficult conflict has overtaken you for 30 years. That will not disappear overnight. But 30 years cannot be an excuse for waiting another 30 years. You cannot afford it, the world cannot afford it,” the Indian Minister explained. Minister Khurshid emphasised that another conflict could not be allowed to re-emerge because sufficient effort had not been made to reconcile differences and build peace where there has been an end of war. Waxing eloquent about the Indo-Lanka friendship and historic links, Minister Khurshid said that the two nations had been through both the good and bad times. “I tell my colleagues that it would be a great, great harm to ourselves if we lost the friendship of Sri Lanka. It’s terrible for anyone to think that Sri Lanka needs us more than we need Sri Lanka. When you are friends, you never think like that,” he said.

India will help when Lanka is ready to negotiate on resolution

India can come into the picture when the Government of Sri Lanka decides it is comfortable enough to negotiate with other countries on the Human Rights Council resolution and its processes, Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid said. Asked during his media interaction yesterday if New Delhi was pushing Colombo on the matter of a consensus resolution, Minister Khurshid said that External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris was looking at various options with regard to the UNHRC resolution this year. “He has promised to share them with me, as and when he thinks it is appropriate,” he noted.

No on arrival for Lanka: Not preconceived, says Khurshid

Sri Lanka’s omission from a list of 180 countries eligible for on arrival visa in India was not preconceived and the process that was just announced by New Delhi was still in the pipeline, the country’s External Affairs Minister said in New Delhi yesterday. There are some security issues that need to be analysed and possibly appropriately addressed, Minister Salman Khurshid told visiting journalists from Sri Lanka at his Ministry. He noted that the list was still being structured and added that when the process was operational India would look at making it universal. “Then we can move beyond the list we have drawn up. It’s a very ambitious list,” the Minister explained.