By IANS,
New Delhi : India may be isolated if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh doesn’t attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting scheduled in Sri Lanka next month, the island nation’s envoy Prasad Kariyawasam said Thursday.
His statement comes in the wake of the Tamil Nadu assembly passing a resolution asking the prime minister not to attend the meet.
“If PM Singh doesn’t go, we have to think about who it will affect. Who will be isolated? Every other country barring Canada is attending. So those who don’t attend will be in isolation,” High Commissioner Kariyawasam told CNN-IBN channel in an interview.
“The Tamil Nadu assembly is uninformed on the status of Tamils and eventually the decision on PM Singh’s visit is prerogative of Indian government only,” he said.
According to Kariyawasam, the groups calling for Sri Lanka’s boycott are those who are unhappy that the LTTE was defeated.
“They should visit now and see the prosperity of Tamils there. Northern Province is growing at 22 percent,” he said.
Noting the summit is being held in Asia after 30 years, he said it is a very important occasion for the continent.
“PM of India is not only leader in this region but leader in Asia, leader in Commonwealth and even in fact the world, so bearing that in mind we… our external affairs minister came personally to invite the prime minister.
“We didn’t go to each and every country so it is a decision that India will have to take bearing in mind the national responsibilities and their profile and their importance of the multinational meeting,” he said.
Noting that human rights violations take place in every country in the world, the Sri Lankan high commissioner said his government is looking at the alleged rights violations in the Northern Province.
“We are looking at those concerns…we have our internal inquiry for that. Issue is that these are propaganda done by groups, some in western countries, some in Tamil Nadu who are upset that LTTE is no more and this campaign will continue,” he contended.