COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s new Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has pledged a “political solution” for the island’s war-torn north, where ethnic minority Tamils have long demanded greater autonomy.

During a two-day visit to the Tamil heartland of Jaffna, Wickremesinghe also repeated his government’s promise of national reconciliation six years after the island’s ethnic war ended, his office said in a statement on Sunday.

“If you want a stable and secure country, we must have a political solution (with Tamils) and move forward,” Wickremesinghe said in an address in the Jaffna peninsula on Saturday and released by his office in the statement.

He did not give details of any proposed political agreement with Tamils, many of whom have for decades pressed for regional autonomy rather than full independence.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2015

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