India can help: Sri Lankan Minister

By Our Special Correspondent

TIRUCHI, JUNE 2. Intervention by an ``understanding and long lasting friend like India'' only could help find an early solution to the ethnic crisis in Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan Minister for Plantation Development, Mr. S. Arumugha Thondaiman, said here today.

He told presspersons that the Sri Lankan Government had been discussing various aspects of the crisis including the role India could play bearing in mind the ``IPKF experience''. According to reports he had received from Colombo, the Sri Lankan Army had been advancing in all war fronts, Mr. Thondaiman said.

To a question whether the LTTE got assistance from India or Tamil Nadu, in particular, the Minister said it was getting help from various countries in the world. On the support extended by some political parties in Tamil Nadu to the LTTE, he said it was for the Indian Government to put an end to such support to the LTTE, a banned organisation in India.

As to the hardship caused to the Tamils in Sri Lanka on account of the present military operations by the LTTE and the Government forces, the Minister said that in all parts of the world when ethnic conflicts took place, the people suffered.

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Section  : Southern States
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