Sri Lanka northern province CM asks for Indian help for a federal solution

Mr. Wignewswaran said he believed that India would intervene again in Sri Lanka as they had come to the assistance of the Tamils in politically sensitive situations in the past.

February 29, 2016 04:41 pm | Updated November 17, 2021 05:02 am IST - Colombo

India might ‘intervene’ again in Sri Lanka to help the Tamil minority and provide a federal solution to the ethnic reconciliation problem, a media report quoted the country’s Northern Province Chief Minister as saying.

The BBC’s Sinhala service reported that C V Wigneswaran, who is himself a Tamil, made the remarks in Jaffna on Sunday while addressing a group of academics, who had returned to the north after their educational pursuits in India.

Mr. Wignewswaran said he believed that India would intervene again in Sri Lanka as they had come to the assistance of the Tamils in politically sensitive situations in the past as well, referring to the Indo—Lanka Peace Accord of 1987.

He said as a direct result of that intervention two provincial councils were created in the north and east.

The Tamils are currently caught in political turbulence once again since the end of the military campaign of the LTTE in 2009 and a federal solution is best to address the issue, the northern Chief Minister was quoted as saying by the BBC.

Mr. Wigneswaran, who was elected in 2013 with over 80 per cent of the vote as the northern Chief Minister, has been towing a hardline and his government had even passed a motion in 2014, calling for an international probe into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka.

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