By IRNA,
New Delhi : India and Sri Lanka on Friday decided to launch a ferry service between Colombo and Tamil Nadu.
“India and Sri Lanka decided to constitute a joint working group on tourism and expressed their commitment to enhance people-to-people movement between the two countries.
The two sides also decided to launch a ferry service between Colombo, capital of Sri Lanka and Tuticorin in India’s Tamil Nadu state,” Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G L Peris told reporters in Colombo after the seventh India-Sri Lanka Joint Commission meeting co-chaired by him and visiting Indian External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, pti reported.
The Joint Commission meeting between the two countries was held for the first time since 2005.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka on Friday assured India that a devolution package for the minority Tamil community in the country was not out of its radar as the two neighbours discussed the key issue of resettlement of internally displaced people (IDPs) in the post LTTE-era.
‘The issue is not out of sight and is not out of the radar,’ Peris told reporters referring to the devolution issue.
He said his government was addressing the important issues of demining and rehabilitation after the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May last year.
Peiris noted that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa recently had a discussion with the pro-LTTE Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to elicit their views on the issue.
On his part, Krishna said Sri Lanka has the historic opportunity to settle outstanding issues between different language speaking people in the island nation.
‘We hope it could be done with understanding and cooperation,’ he said.
Earlier, Krishna met Rajapaksa and discussed issues of bilateral interests.
‘We exchanged quite a few thoughts,’ he said.
Krishna, who is there on a four-day visit, said on Thursday that a ‘meaningful’ devolution package aimed at the minority Tamil community would help create lasting peace in Sri Lanka and hoped that discussions on the issue would begin soon.
‘The end of the armed conflict holds out hope that an era of reconciliation and meaningful devolution package will begin in Sri Lanka,’ he had said.