Karunanidhi meets UPA ministers, no decision on pullout

By IANS,

Chennai : The crucial meeting between DMK chief M. Karunanidhi and three union ministers on the stand to be taken by India over the US-sponsored resolution against Sri Lanka ended here Monday with no major decision being taken.


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Karunanidhi demanded that parliament pass a resolution declaring that there was genocide of Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad met Karunanidhi at his residence.

The meeting comes in the wake of Karunanidhi Sunday threatening that the DMK would withdraw support to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government if it did not take steps to bring amendments to the resolution against Sri Lanka in the United Nations Human Rights Centre (UNHRC).

Karunanidhi said Sunday: “If our requests are not heeded, our relationship with this alliance will not continue.”

He told reporters after the meeting that he had told the three ministers that “the attack on Lankan Tamils by Sri Lanka and those in the Lankan administration should be declared as war crime and genocide”.

He said there should be a probe into the war crimes in Sri Lanka by a credible independent international body.

Karunanidhi said a resolution containing the above should be passed in parliament.

After the meeting, Azad said a decision would be announced after discussing the deliberations of the meeting with Karunanidhi with the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and consulting UPA chairperson and Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Azad said they had met Karunanidhi to discuss the changes to the US resolution suggested by him.

The meeting discussed the issues raised by Karunanidhi in his letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi wherein the DMK leader wanted that the UNHRC “declares that genocide and war crimes had been committed and inflicted on Eelam Tamils by the Sri Lankan Army and the administrators”.

Karunanidhi said India should strongly urge the establishment of a credible and independent international commission of investigation into the allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity, violations of international human rights law, violations of international humanitarian law and genocide against the Tamil people.

The DMK has five members in the prime minister’s council of ministers.

Sri Lanka is under attack over the death of a large number of Tamil civilians during the final stages of the war that crushed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009.

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