IDP safety and resettlement is Sri Lanka’s top priority: diplomat

Vadivel Krishnamoorthy, Sri Lankan Deputy High Commissioner in Southern India, during an interaction in Chennai on Tuesday.


CHENNAI: The newly appointed Sri Lankan Deputy High Commissioner in Southern India, Vadivel Krishnamoorthy, said his objective was to strengthen the “excellent relations” of his country with...
southern India, especially with Tamil Nadu.

Speaking to The Hindu on a range of issues, Mr. Krishnamoorthy, a Tamil of recent Indian origin whose ancestors migrated from Ramanathapuram three generations ago, said the two countries shared political, economic and cultural ties. “Today we are looking at the SAARC and South Asia, but bilaterally we are close neighbours,” he added. “We have also signed a free trade agreement with India. So India could become number one in terms of imports and exports. In terms of our bilateral relations we have the best of times. In my time I will work towards strengthening it.”

The Deputy High Commissioner expressed his gratitude for India’s help in rehabilitation and resettlement programmes, adding that the welfare camps for internally displaced persons (IDP) were “in very good condition.”

He explained that his government had adequately addressed the concerns raised over the preparedness of the camps to tackle the monsoon. “The government’s priority,” he reiterated, “is the convenience and safety of the IDPs. When the monsoon comes, the drainage is important. So 80 per cent of the drainage system, in a short span of time, anticipating many difficulties, has been created. The rest of the drainage, I think, will be constructed within a week.”

Mr. Krishnamoorthy said the Sri Lanka government and President Mahinda Rajapaksa gave the utmost priority to the security of the IDPs and 10,593 IDPs were already resettled in their original places. A total of 22,668 IDPs had been released from different camps on the basis of medical needs and humanitarian considerations. Senior citizens, religious leaders, foreign visa holders, university students, and pregnant mothers had also been released.

He pointed out that the government had launched the National Framework Proposal for reintegration of ex-combatants into civilian life in Sri Lanka, to safeguard the human rights of ex-combatants and to protect and assist them in accordance with the Constitution of Sri Lanka to ensure sustainable peace and reconciliation.

Mr. Krishnamoorthy said mines remained a major obstacle to the resettlement and the government had imported machines to speed up demining. “We imported demining machines from Croatia. It cost 270 million in Sri Lankan rupees and so within a short time, that is in the last five months 26,734 anti-personnel mines, 26 landmines, 26 death traps, and 31 pressure bomb reels were removed. We also imported 5 machines from Slovakia for 260 million rupees.”

The Sri Lankan government had resource constraints, he explained, but President Rajapaksa had assigned the highest priority to development works. “He wants to ensure empowerment and equality so that every citizen, notwithstanding their birth or culture, is treated the same way. He wants to establish a bilingual nation with equal rights for all. The President’s vision is to make a unified country.”

U.S.-Afghan assault kills 40 militants, Kabul says

KABUL -- American and Afghan troops swept through forested mountains in eastern Afghanistan yesterday, killing 40 militant fighters in a hunt for insurgents responsible for one of the war's deadliest attacks on U.S. troops, the Defense Ministry said.

Ten Afghan soldiers have been killed in... the operations since Monday, most of them in Nuristan province's Kamdesh district, ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said.

The violence was part of a spate of attacks across the nation, including a roadside bombing of a NATO convoy in Sayed Abad district west of Kabul that wounded two foreign soldiers, said Capt. Elizabeth Mathias, an American media officer for NATO forces.

Meanwhile, the country also is nearing a resolution to August's disputed presidential vote. Election workers began recounting suspect ballots Monday, and a ruling on whether President Hamid Karzai won or will face a runoff is expected next week.

Kamdesh, cut off from the rest of the region with no regular phone or radio contact and few roads, is where eight Americans and two Afghan troops died Saturday after hundreds of Taliban militants overwhelmed their thinly manned garrisons.Azimi said joint operations were continuing yesterday in Kamdesh, and seven insurgents had been arrested there.

Mathias, however, said there had "not been any significant engagement" in Kamdesh since Saturday. She said U.S. and Afghan forces were still in the remote area and had not pulled out.

NATO said in a statement that 100 attackers were killed in Saturday's fighting. The alliance had previously said only that coalition forces inflicted "heavy casualties" while defending the outposts with artillery, airstrikes and helicopter gunships.

NATO said Saturday's attack was carried out "by local anti-Afghan forces, while local Taliban" and fighters loyal to Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar "may have helped facilitate" it.

The Taliban have claimed responsibility.

In other violence yesterday, a patrol came under small-arms and rocket-propelled-grenade fire in Logar province, southwest of Kabul, but there were no casualties, Mathias said. Logar's police chief, Gen. Mohammed Mustafa Mosseini, said the attack sparked a gunbattle that led to the arrest of at least one militant.

In London, Britain's defense ministry said one British soldier died Monday after an explosion in southern Afghanistan. The soldier was on foot patrol near the Nad Ali district center in restive Helmand province.
U.S. war dead

Includes combat and noncombat military deaths:

• In Afghanistan: 791 since military operations began Oct. 7, 2001

Sources: Defense Department, Associated Press

French envoy calls for substantial nuclear talks

The French special envoy on North Korea said Wednesday there should be "real and concrete discussions" if international talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programs resume.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told the visiting Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao, on Monday that... Pyongyang is willing to rejoin six-nation nuclear talks depending on progress in its negotiations with the U.S., according to Chinese and North Korean official media.

That raised hope for North Korea's possible return to the talks, from which it withdrew after conducting a rocket test in April and a second nuclear test in May. The regime said earlier it would never return to the talks involving China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S.

Jack Lang, the French envoy on North Korea who was appointed by President Nicolas Sarkozy last week, has been on a tour of the six nations involved in the negotiations to evaluate ways France can help end the nuclear standoff.

Lang, who arrived in Seoul on Tuesday from Japan, said there should be "real and concrete discussions" if North Korea comes back to the negotiating table.

"We hope that it will be not only the opening of discussions, but it will be the way to change completely the situation," Lang told reporters after meeting with South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan.

Lang said he plans to visit North Korea around Nov. 10.

Yonhap news agency quoted Lang as saying in a separate news conference that France or the European Union could participate in compensating North Korea in return for its denuclearization. Neither France nor the EU is a member of the six-nation disarmament talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear programs.

China said it welcomed the North's offer to return to the nuclear talks, saying late Tuesday that the six-party talks are the best way to achieve a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and they should resume as soon as possible.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Washington was aware of reports that North Korea would reconsider opening talks but said the United States had not gotten details of the meeting from the Chinese.

North Korea has been moderating its tone in recent weeks, signaling its willingness to resume a dialogue with the United States, China and other partners and backing away from the provocative behavior and rhetoric of the spring.

The North agreed in 2007 to disable its nuclear facilities in return for international aid. In June last year, the North blew up the cooling tower at its main nuclear complex near Pyongyang in show of its commitment. But the denuclearization came to a halt later in 2008 as Pyongyang wrangled with Washington over how to verify its past activities.

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