(August 26, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) Sri Lanka is willing to accept the traditional rights of Indian fishermen near Kachchativu island and had assured India that its navy will not open fire on the fishermen, national security adviser M K Narayanan said on Monday.
“We have taken up the traditional rights of the Indian fishermen as enshrined in the 1974 agreement. We believe that the Sri Lankan side is willing to accept the traditional rights of the Indian fishermen,” Narayanan told reporters after an hour-long meeting with chief minister M Karunanidhi at the secretariat in Chennai.
Stating that India and Sri Lanka had reached a “positive understanding” on many points of concern to Indian fishermen, he said the island government had given an assurance that its navy would not open fire on fishermen from India. Details of the agreement were still being finalised, he said.
Asked about the demand from some political parties in Tamil Nadu for retrieving Kachchativu from Sri Lanka, Narayanan said, “International treaties and agreements can’t be changed overnight.”
He said Karunanidhi’s concerns over being shot at by the Lankan navy or arrested while fishing on the island’s territorial waters had been conveyed to Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a bilateral meeting held in Colombo before the SAARC summit earlier this month.
Indian officials held a meeting with their Sri Lankan counterparts. Without going into details of the meeting, Narayanan said Sri Lanka had assured the Indian side that whenever fishermen were taken into custody, they would be released in the shortest possible time. It had also promised humanitarian treatment of Indian fishermen whenever they were arrested. Asked if India would reject the waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group for India to join the global nuclear commerce, if it came with unacceptable conditions, Narayanan said: “Why should you anticipate and speculate? We are hopeful that we will be through NSG too.” On the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, he said the Centre was dealing with in a manner to ensure that the situation did not recede too much. “We have made a lot of progress in the past two years. We want to maintain that progress. There have been a few violations of curfew and they have been dealt with,” he said.
Earlier, Narayanan discussed the security situation in the state with top officers of the state police. The police made a presentation on the present position in the activities of LTTE supporters, left-wing extremists and fundamentalist groups in the state.
- Sri Lanka Guardian
“We have taken up the traditional rights of the Indian fishermen as enshrined in the 1974 agreement. We believe that the Sri Lankan side is willing to accept the traditional rights of the Indian fishermen,” Narayanan told reporters after an hour-long meeting with chief minister M Karunanidhi at the secretariat in Chennai.
Stating that India and Sri Lanka had reached a “positive understanding” on many points of concern to Indian fishermen, he said the island government had given an assurance that its navy would not open fire on fishermen from India. Details of the agreement were still being finalised, he said.
Asked about the demand from some political parties in Tamil Nadu for retrieving Kachchativu from Sri Lanka, Narayanan said, “International treaties and agreements can’t be changed overnight.”
He said Karunanidhi’s concerns over being shot at by the Lankan navy or arrested while fishing on the island’s territorial waters had been conveyed to Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a bilateral meeting held in Colombo before the SAARC summit earlier this month.
Indian officials held a meeting with their Sri Lankan counterparts. Without going into details of the meeting, Narayanan said Sri Lanka had assured the Indian side that whenever fishermen were taken into custody, they would be released in the shortest possible time. It had also promised humanitarian treatment of Indian fishermen whenever they were arrested. Asked if India would reject the waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group for India to join the global nuclear commerce, if it came with unacceptable conditions, Narayanan said: “Why should you anticipate and speculate? We are hopeful that we will be through NSG too.” On the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, he said the Centre was dealing with in a manner to ensure that the situation did not recede too much. “We have made a lot of progress in the past two years. We want to maintain that progress. There have been a few violations of curfew and they have been dealt with,” he said.
Earlier, Narayanan discussed the security situation in the state with top officers of the state police. The police made a presentation on the present position in the activities of LTTE supporters, left-wing extremists and fundamentalist groups in the state.
- Sri Lanka Guardian
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