India returns goodwill gesture; releases 85 Sri Lankan fishermen
May 28, 2014 09:08 am
India
has agreed to release 85 Sri Lankan fishermen who are lodged in different jails
in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. This was conveyed to Sri Lanka president Mahinda
Rajapaksa when he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday morning.
In
a good will gesture, the Sri Lankan government had released all the Indian
fishermen in their custody before Rajapaksa’s visit.
The
key issues of rehabilitation and reconstruction and the 13th amendment was the
subject of conversation between the two leaders. “He (Modi) requested the
government of Sri Lanka to expedite the process of national reconciliation in a
manner that meets the aspirations of the Tamil community for a life of
equality, justice, peace and dignity in a united Sri Lanka,” Foreign Secretary
Sujatha Singh recounted later.
The
conversation covered areas of crucial security cooperation between Sri Lanka
and India. The two countries, along with Maldives form a trilateral grouping on
security and intelligence in the Indian Ocean, a move that sources say, has
been very successful. The trio recently invited Mauritius to join the grouping.
While
Rajapaksa could not bring the chief minister of Northern Provinces, Vigneswaran
with him. He did bring along Jaffna’s Tamil Mayor Yogeshwari Pathkunarajah to
Monday’s oath taking ceremony of Narendra Modi as India’s prime minister
Monday, Times of India reports.
