Lanka heads for collision course with India: Report

Colombo (PTI) - Sri Lanka has told India it will
not concede key land and police powers to provincial councils
under a New Delhi-initiated political plan aimed at resolving
the long-drawn Tamil issue, a media report said Sunday,
warning that it could bring the two sides on "a collision
course."
President Mahinda Rajapaksa told a visiting top Indian
delegation yesterday that the key police powers and control
over land cannot be given to provincial councils established
under the 13th amendment that deals with devolution of powers.
"The government's tough stance in not giving land and
police powers to provincial councils is expected to pitch
Colombo and New Delhi on a collision course diplomatically,"
the Sunday Times newspaper said.
There was no immediate comment from the government which
did not issue any statement after Rajapaksa held a breakfast
meeting with Indian National Security Adviser Shivshanker
Menon, Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and Defence Secretary
Pradeep Kumar.
The troika was also accompanied by India's High
Commissioner here, Ashok Kanth.
Menon told Colombo-based Indian reporters just before the
top Indian officials left here that Sri Lanka would build on
the 13th amendment which was a result of the 1987 Indo-Sri
Lanka peace accord.
The Sunday Times said it learnt about strong opposition
from constituent partners of Rajapaksa's United People's
Freedom Alliance to granting more powers to the provincial
councils which largely remain ineffective.
"President Rajapaksa is learnt to have told the Indian
delegation that his government would concede many other
subjects that are incorporated in the Concurrent List
(subjects that both the centre and the councils can do) that
accompanies the 13th Amendment to the Constitution."
He also told the Indian delegation that his government
will withdraw Emergency Regulations with regard to terrorist
activities in the North and East since there was no more war
in the two regions, the Times said.
Menon told reporters yesterday that Sri Lanka has already
pledged to improve on the Constitutional amendment and hoped
they would implement it.
"The quicker the Sri Lankan government can come to a
political arrangement (with the minority Tamils) the better,"
he said, adding that an arrangement that is acceptable to all
is the objective.
India appeared to have toughened its stand on Sri Lanka
last month by asking publicly for the first time in decades to
investigate alleged human rights abuses and end emergency
rule.