‘Serious concern about validity of India-Sri Lanka 1987 accord’

COLOMBO: Provincial Councils Minister Sarath Weerasekara said recently that India has no moral right to interfere in the country’s internal affairs by insisting on power sharing with minority Tamils because New Delhi failed to fulfil its obligations under a 1987 agreement to disarm separatist rebels and ensure an end to Sri Lanka’s civil war.

Weerasekara’s comments in Parliament are seen as the island nation’s response to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s request last month to his Sri Lankan counterpart, Mahinda Rajapaksa, for the full implementation of constitutional provisions for power sharing with Tamil minority regions, The Associated Press reported.

In a phone conversation on Sept. 27, Modi asked Rajapaksa to “to address the aspirations of the Tamil people for equality, justice, peace and respect within a united Sri Lanka … with the implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka,” according to a statement from Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry.

The India-Sri Lanka Accord called for the devolution of power to the provinces and resulted in the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution, which created provincial councils with a degree of decentralized power. Weerasekara is the minister in charge of the councils.

According to The Associated Press, Weerasekara said Rajapaksa chose last year not to criticize India’s revocation of statehood for its disputed Jammu and Kashmir region because it was an internal matter, while Modi may have called for power sharing with Tamils because India was party to the earlier agreement with Sri Lanka.

“I have my reservations about the Indo-Lanka accord … did India honor her part in that agreement?” Weerasekara asked, adding that India had failed to ensure disarmament, an end to hostilities and the resettlement of displaced people.

“So there is serious concern about the validity of the agreement, and if it’s not valid I think India has no moral right to interfere in our affairs,” Weerasekara said in The Associated Press report.

India in 1987 intervened to end the civil war between Sri Lankan government forces and minority ethnic Tamil rebels.