June 23, 2008	Monday	Jamadi-us-Sani 18, 1429

COLOMBO, June 22: India has signalled to Sri Lanka that it wants to see an end to the island’s military campaign to help solve the decades-old Tamil separatist conflict, diplomats and officials said on Sunday.

In closed-door talks over the weekend with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse and top officials, India’s National Security Advisor M. K. Narayanan said New Delhi wanted to see renewed political efforts to bring peace.

“The Indian delegation made it clear that they did not believe a military solution was possible,” a diplomatic source close to the delegation said. “The delegation was keen that there should be a political solution.” Narayanan, together with India’s Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon and Defence Secretary Vijay Singh, also met the leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), seen as a political wing of the Tamil Tigers.

The delegation also met three other Tamil leaders separately and stressed the need for Tamil unity to negotiate with the Sinhalese-majority government, one of the Tamil politicians said.

Dharmalingam Sithadthan, the head of the Tamil Democratic People’s Liberation Front, said the Indian team was concerned that minority Tamil parties were badly split, affecting their negotiating position.

“They came to talk about the conflict. They are worried that we are not united,” Sithadthan said. “India is keen on a political solution.”

He said the delegation was also concerned about the hardships of the minority Tamil community as a result of tighter security measures following a spate of Tamil Tiger bomb attacks.

The Sri Lankan government believes it has the upper hand after driving Tigers out of the multi-ethnic eastern province last year, and is currently trying to wrest control over the defacto mini-state of the rebels in the north.

The government formally withdrew from a Norwegian-arranged truce in January and stepped up attacks against the Tigers.—AFP