New Delhi: India’s Prime Min-ister Manmohan Singh
will meet Sri Lankan Presid-ent Mahinda Rajapaksa on the sidelines of
the BIMSTEC Summit in Myanmar early next month.
India’s Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh said at a media briefing the
Prime Minister will attend the 3rd BIMSTEC Summit on 4th March and the
he will hold talks with Sri Lankan President on the sidelines of the
Summit next week.
The Indian Premier will be meeting the Sri Lankan leader for the first
time after skipping last year’s Commonwealth Heads of Gov-ernment
Meeting held in Colombo in November after bowing to the pressure from
the Tamil Nadu political leaders.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh leaves for Mya-nmar on Monday to attend the BIMSTEC Summit.
The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic
Coop-eration (BIMSTEC) is an international organization involving
Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal. The
seven-country forum aims to achieve its own free trade area by 2017.
Responding to a media query on how India will vote on the third
US-sponsored Resolution at the UN Human Rights Council calling for an
international inquiry into Sri Lanka’s war crime allegations, the
Foreign Secretary said it is a “very complex process” and they have to
wait and see how the resolution is drawn up.
“We have to see the text of the resolution, we have to take several
other factors into account and then will finally vote,” the Foreign
Secretary said.
India has voted against Sri Lanka on the two previous resolutions tabled
by the US and adopted by the UNHRC in Geneva in 2011 and 2012.
As regional elections are approaching this year, the central government
of India is under extreme pressure from the Tami Nadu political
leadership to vote for the third resolution against Sri Lanka within two
years and it is highly unlikely for India to support Sri Lanka at the
UN.
Sri Lanka has consistently rejected an international investigation into
the war crime allegations and human rights violations as an intrusion
into the country’s sovereign affairs.
On Monday, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navy Pillay
releasing her report on Sri Lanka called for establishing an
“independent, international inquiry mechanism” as the government has
failed to ensure independent and credible investigations into past
violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.
The government categorically rejected the call saying that conclusions
and recommendations contained in her report reflect bias and are
tantamount to unwanted interference in the internal affairs of a
sovereign State.
The government has launched a diplomatic operation aiming to counter the
international pressure that is being exerted on the country ahead of
the UNHRC session.
Russia and China have declared their strong support to Sri Lanka against
the US-sponsored resolution and opposed an international investigation
into the allegations of war crimes committed during the war saying human
rights should not be used as a pretext for interference in internal
affairs.
which included excess liquidity, lower credit demand and worldwide decrease in gold prices, etc.
