Help free our fishermen, Jayalalitha tells Wickremesinghe

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JUNE 4. The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms. Jayalalitha, today urged the Leader of the Opposition in Sri Lanka, Mr. Ranil Wickremesinghe, to take up with his Government the issue of ill- treatment of Indian fishermen taken into custody by the Sri Lankan Navy.

During a meeting with Mr. Wickremesinghe at the secretariat, Ms. Jayalalitha impressed upon him the need to immediately set free the fishermen who had strayed into Sri Lankan waters by accident.

Speaking to presspersons after the meeting, she said the fishermen were harmless. They had entered Sri Lankan waters for their livelihood and should be treated humanely.

Asked whether she had raised the demand for retrieval of Katchatheevu, she said the issue was for the Centre to take up with the Sri Lankan Government. Mr. Wickremesinghe was only the Leader of the Opposition.

Denying that she would take up the issue directly with Colombo, Ms. Jayalalitha said ``I am a State Chief Minister. Any request would have to be routed through the Government of India.''

Mr. Wickremesinghe, while confirming that he would take up with the Sri Lankan Government the concerns of Tamil Nadu about the ill-treatment of fishermen, said no one in Sri Lanka saw Katchatheevu as an issue. The treatment of fishermen caught by the Navy was the issue.

Mr. Wickremesinghe had briefed Ms. Jayalalitha on the discussions he had held with the External Affairs Minister, Mr. Jaswant Singh. Ms. Jayalalitha, he said, was for peace in the island. India had always stood for a negotiated settlement to the ethnic crisis.

Asked whether his party, the UNP, supported the revocation of the ban on the LTTE, he said the UNP would back any move that would help start negotiations between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Government again. The UNP did not want to derail the process and would come out with its views only when the substantive issue was taken up for discussion.

On whether he thought that India's demand for the extradition of the LTTE chief, Mr. V. Prabhakaran, would come in the way of the Sri Lankan Government resuming talks with the LTTE, he said the issue did not come up during his meetings here. Ms. Jayalalitha, however, refused to answer a question on whether the LTTE figured in the meeting with Mr. Wickremesinghe, saying she could not be expected to reveal all the details.

Later, Mr. Wickremesinghe met the former Chief Minister and DMK president, Mr. M. Karunanidhi.

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