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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lkdood" data-source="post: 3895038" data-attributes="member: 92282">External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has told the Sri Lankan leadership that it’s time for a political settlement with the Tamils of the island nation. In a statement today, he said Sri Lanka’s military gains against the LTTE provided an opportune moment to push for a political settlement. “We will work with the government of Sri Lanka to enable all Sri Lankans, particularly the Tamil community, which has borne the brunt of the conflict, to lead normal lives as soon as possible,” said Mukherjee.At a meeting during Mukherjee’s one-day visit to Sri Lanka, President Mahinda Rajapaksa gave an assurance that his government would “move as quickly as possible to implement the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and go further and improve upon those devolution proposals.” Mukherjee said the amendment was brought in as part of the 1987 India-Sri Lanka agreement, whose cornerstones were recognition of “unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka”, acknowledgement of Sri Lanka as a “multi-ethnic and a multi-lingual plural society” and devolution of powers to minorities such as Tamils, Muslims and Burghers by creating provincial councils with civil, police and judicial powers. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution and the Provincial Councils Act treated all provinces equally. “This was not acceptable to either the Tamils in Sri Lanka or the political parties in Tamil Nadu as the solution did not go into the root cause of the Tamil grievance, that is, asymmetrical devolution of power,” said N Manoharan, senior fellow at New Delhi-based Centre for Land Warfare Studies. On reports that Sri Lanka considered the accord as “key” to a political solution, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Karunanidhi had last week cautioned against “thrusting” the accord on the Tamils. Mukherjee also yesterday said Sri Lanka would “respect the safe zones and minimise the effect of the conflict on the Tamil civilians” and welcomed Rajapaksa’s invitation to Karunanidhi and AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa to lead an all-party delegation to Sri Lanka to assess the ground situation and “persuade the LTTE to lay down arms and join the democratic mainstream.”<a href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/pranab-time-for-political-settlement-in-sri-lanka/02/21/347384/" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/pranab-time-for-political-settlement-in-sri-lanka/02/21/347384/" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/pranab-time-for-political-settlement-in-sri-lanka/02/21/347384/" target="_blank">business-standard</a></blockquote>

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