External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who met Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe on Saturday, underscored the need to recognise the humanitarian dimension to the fishermen issue which, she said, was essentially a question of livelihoods.
Referring to Mr. Wickramesinghe’s controversial comments in an interview to Thanthi TV aired recently, Ms. Swaraj “forthrightly” put across India’s perceptive on the matter, Foreign Ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin told mediapersons here.
To Mr. Wickramasinghe’s accusation in the interview that India had “double standards” in dealing with Indian trawlers allegedly poaching in Sri Lankan waters and the Italian marines charged with killing Indian fishermen, Ms. Swaraj categorically said the two were not comparable. “They are two different issues, primarily from a humanitarian perspective or a legal perspective, and the Minister explained to the PM our perspective on this,” Mr. Akbaruddin said.
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The Sri Lankan Prime Minister had said in the interview that it was legitimate to “shoot fishermen” if they trespassed into the Sri Lankan waters. “Why are [they] coming into our waters? Why are [they] fishing in our waters...? Stay on the Indian side, there will be no issue, no one will shoot anyone else,” he had remarked.
Mr. Wickramasinghe’s tough stance appears to have struck a sour note with New Delhi, coming just a week ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Sri Lanka on March 13 and 14.
Asked to comment on Mr. Wickramasinghe’s remarks, senior Tamil politician and Leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) R. Sampanthan said while the right of self-defence was recognised under the penal law of Sri Lanka, he doubted if Mr. Wickramasinghe would execute it. “I don’t know in what context he said it, but in the context of both sides willing to settle the matter amicably rather than by using weapons, I think good sense should prevail.”
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