DATE=6/10/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=INDIA / SRI LANKA (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-263346
BYLINE=JIM TEEPLE
DATELINE=NEW DELHI
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: India's Foreign Minister travels to Sri Lanka
Sunday for two days of talks on the political and
military situation in the war-ravaged nation. As V-O-
A's Jim Teeple reports from New Delhi, Indian
officials say they want to encourage peace in Sri
Lanka, but it is up to Sri Lankans themselves to solve
their political differences.
Text: India's Foreign Minister, Jaswant Singh holds
talks with President Chandrika Kumaratunga, and other
senior officials as well as with members of the
opposition. No Indian military officials are
traveling with Mr. Singh.
India says it will not get involved militarily in the
Sri Lankan conflict, but could provide humanitarian
assistance to 40-thousand Sri Lankan army troops in
the northern city of Jaffna -- if Sri Lanka's
government requests it. Raminder Jassal, the chief
spokesman at India's Foreign Ministry, says New Delhi
wants to encourage a political settlement to the 17-
year war.
/// JASSAL ACT ///
We would like to see a political settlement -- a
negotiated political settlement within the
framework of the unity and territorial integrity
of Sri Lanka - in which all communities can
realize their aspirations. We believe the first
step toward that is a cessation of all
hostilities and an abjuring of terrorist
violence.
/// END ACT ///
The Indian government strongly condemned the recent
killing of Sri Lanka's minister of industrial
development, Clement Gooneratne, who along with more
than 20 others was killed by a suicide bomber believed
to be working for the Tamil Tiger's. The guerrillas
are fighting to establish a homeland in the northern
and eastern parts of Sri Lanka.
Some Tamil politicians in India have called for Sri
Lanka to be partitioned along ethnic lines, but Indian
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has strongly
rejected any such move.
In 1987, India sent thousands of troops to Sri Lanka
to try and enforce a peace accord but the operation
got bogged down in internal Sri Lankan politics. More
than one-thousand Indian troops were killed and
thousands more wounded in the operation in fighting
with Tamil guerrillas before the force was withdrawn
in 1990. One year later India's prime minister, Rajiv
Gandhi, was killed by a female Tamil suicide bomber
allegedly linked to the Tamil Tigers while campaigning
for re-election in southern India. (Signed)
NEB/JLT/JP
10-Jun-2000 10:24 AM EDT (10-Jun-2000 1424 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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