By P.K. Balachandran, IANS
Colombo : Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said that India and the US are supporting the war against “Tamil Tiger terrorism” because they themselves feel threatened by the Tigers.
“India now realises that it could be the next target of the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam). And I am told that the LTTE has taken a contract to motivate Al Qaeda cadres to become suicide bombers,” Rajapaksa told IANS on the sidelines of a press conference here Tuesday.
The president described his government’s relations with New Delhi as “very good” and added that if he had to allow any foreign government delegation to go to Kilinochchi to talk to the LTTE, it would be the Indian government.
“I prefer India. It is our neighbour,” he asserted.
The Sri Lankan government has not been allowing international aid givers like the US, European Union, Britain, Japan and Norway, collectively known as the co-chairs, to go to Kilinochchi to meet with the LTTE.
On the discovery of a reported plan by the LTTE to kidnap the self-exiled Sri Lankan Tamil political leader A. Varatharajaperumal in India, Rajapaksa said the latter was a “spent force”.
“But the danger lay in the possibility that the militant group might kidnap a currently active Sri Lankan Tamil leader,” he added.
Earlier, at the press conference, Rajapaksa said that he preferred the India-Sri Lanka Accord of 1987 to be the basis of a solution to the ethnic conflict in the country because it was the most practical thing to do, even though in the early years, he was opposed to the accord.
“The 13th amendment of the constitution (which devolved a modicum of power to the provinces in 1987 after the accord) is already part of the law of the land, which we all must respect. As a matter of fact, today, only the LTTE is opposed to it,” he said.
Asked why he should ask the All Party Representative Committee (APRC), tasked to work out a devolution package, to give him a scheme no different from the existing 13th amendment, the president said that the 13th amendment had not been implemented fully in all these years and he wanted to implement it.
“I would like to know why it was not implemented, and I asked the APRC to tell me,” he said.
Asked if the APRC would submit its report as per schedule Wednesday, in view of reports that there were many unresolved issues, Rajapaksa said that the panel had not yet asked him for more time.