India washes hands of Lanka's Tamil conflict

India on Tuesday virtually washed its hands off Sri Lanka's minority Tamils, with External Affairs Minister I K Gujral ruling out New Delhi's intervention on their behalf to resolve the island's ethnic conflict.

Tamil leaders who met Gujral said he was firm in his assertion that the ethnic conflict was an internal problem of the island and India would not get involved in it.

''The attitude of the mahanayakes (Buddhist prelates) when we met them in Kandy was more helpful than Gujral's,'' said a disappointed Tamil leader, who did not want to be identified.

Influential sections of the island's Buddhist clergy have been strongly opposed to political concessions to the Tamils.

The Tamil leaders said when one of them raised the issue of India's ''moral responsibility'' under the July 1987 accord to help the Tamils to live in peace and dignity in the island, Gujral responded by posing the question, ''What happened to one of the signatories to the accord?''

He was referring to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, who as the then prime minister, was a co-signatory to the accord with the then president J R Jayawardene, by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Gujral, however, assured the Tamil leaders that India would render all possible relief assistance to the island's besieged Tamil community in the form of food and medicines, they said.

''In that respect, he said, ''the sky is the limit,'' one leader said.

Gujral also told the Tamil leaders that India had its own internal problems and that it was not in a position to intervene on their behalf.

Meanwhile, India and Sri Lanka on Wednesday signed a landmark investment promotion and protection agreement to boost bilateral economic ties and decided to bury their political differences.

The agreement for the promotion and protection of investment was signed by External Affairs Minister I K Gujral and his Sri Lankan counterpart Lakshman Kadirgamar, at the end of Gujral's four-day visit to the island.

"This is a new beginning," Gujral told a joint news conference with Kadirgamar later.

Kadirgamar described the agreement as a "confidence-building measure" and said it would help in greater flow of investments between the two countries.

Gujral noted that he had already informed the Indo-Sri Lanka joint commission meeting New Delhi's decision to unilaterally reduce tariff and remove all non-tariff barriers on 70 to 80 Sri Lanka export products.

He said officials of the commerce ministries of the two countries would hold talks in the next ten days in New Delhi to finalise the list of the products.

Kadirgamar described their meeting as a "historic and almost dramatic enhancement of relationship between the two countries."

He was confident that this trend in relations would gain momentum and would not slide backwards and said it would be marked by openness and a continued dialogue.

Kadirgamar said trade imbalance between the two countries was a staggering one to 15 ratio, with Indian exports to the island touching 500 million dollars while Sri Lanka's export to India was only 21 million dollars last year.

"It is a question of concern to both countries. Something must be done about it," he added.

He said though New Delhi had agreed to reduce tariff and quantitative restrictions on about 80 export items from Sri Lanka out of a list of 192 items, he had been assured by Gujral that the list would be expanded gradually.

He said most of the items listed for exports were locally produced and agricultural in nature.

Gujral responded with a firm "no" to a question whether India would offer military assistance to Colombo to deal with the LTTE in view of the fact that the rebels posed a security threat to India, too.

"India would take care of whatever security threat it saw," he added.

He was asked that since India was washing its hands off the island's ethnic conflict what would be its attitude to offers by other countries to mediate to end the conflict. "I don't discuss hypothetical problems," he said.

Gujral said India would, however, render all humanitarian assistance to the island and said he had offered Rs 50 million crore for the rehabilitation programme of the northern province, including Jaffna peninsula.

A joint communique issued at the end of the visit said the two ministers also signed an agreement for the second tranche of 15 million dollars of a 30 million dollar credit line to the island.

Regarding the shooting incident in the Palk Strait on Monday in which an Indian fisherman was killed, Kadirgamar said it was a deliberate act by the Tamil militants, timed for Gujral's visit to Colombo.

"I am driven to the inescapable conclusion that this incident was a deliberate act of the LTTE to disrupt Indo-Sri Lankan relations at this juncture during the visit of Gujral,"Kadirgamar said in a statement.

He said the Sri Lankan navy had categorically stated that it did not fire any shots anywhere on that day.

He noted that the area near Kachchativu island, where the incident took place, was well known as a route used by the LTTE.

He said the Indian high commission had informed that one of the four crew on board a fishing trawler had suffered fatal injuries in the shooting.

A joint communique issued at the end of Gujral's visit said as a gesture of goodwill, Sri Lanka had agreed to release 25 Indian fisherman who had been taken into custody for straying into the island's waters but against whom there were no security-related charges.

India undertook to expedite action for the release of 23 Sri Lankan fishermen who were in its custody, it said.

UNI