India asks Lanka to address concerns

NEW DELHI: In a finely balanced statement, India has asked Lanka to address the ‘concerns’ over the alleged killing of Tamil civilians in the last days of the war against LTTE in 2009, even as it noted that there were ‘questions’ over the report of UN Secretary General’s panel of experts that accused Colombo of war crimes. The Indian government’s response came in the wake of a news documentary by Britain’s Channel Four which alleged large-scale targeting of civilians by the Sri Lankan army in the last days of the war. The documentary ‘Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields’ was recently shown on a Indian private television channel. “The sequence of events during the last days of the conflict is unclear. The Sri Lankan government would need to go into the matter in greater detail. The concerns that are being expressed in this regard need to be examined,” said Ministry of External Affairs’ official spokesperson Vishnu Prakash.India had always emphasised with Sri Lankan government that the rehabilitation of Tamil speaking minorities in the north and eastern region should be of ‘highest and most immediate priority’, he added. “A fair and reasonable settlement of the political issues concerning the minorities in Sri Lanka is of utmost importance and the historic opportunity offered by the end of the conflict should be availed of at the earliest,” said Prakash.In March this year, a panel of experts set up by the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon had found both the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tigers guilty of war crimes in the last days of the conflict in 2009. Prakash said that the Indian government had already raised the issue and heard the views of the Sri Lankan government during the visit of Lankan foreign minister to Delhi in May and visit by top Indian officials to Colombo last month.“In general, there are still questions on the report. So me countries have raised this in the UN Human Rig hts Council,” he said. At the same time, he said India had legitimate interests in the matter due to close connections with Lanka’s Tamil speaking ethnic group.