Third party involvement not ruled out:

Nirupama’s visit to help iron out issues - Foreign Secy

by Manjula FERNANDO

Indian Foreign Secretary, Nirupama Rao’s visit to Sri Lanka will help to iron out the issues with regard to the Indian fishermen’s problem and discuss measures to protect the Mahabodhi Centre in Chennai and Sri Lankan pilgrims to Buddhagaya, according to Foreign Secretary Romesh Jayasinghe.

Third party involvement in the Indian fishermen’s killing to hurt good relations between Sri Lanka and India has not been ruled out while the two countries continue further inquires into the incident that had caused massive protests in Tamil Nadu and compelled Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao to arrive in Sri Lanka.

The Foreign Secretary told the Sunday Observer that the two countries enjoy close bi-lateral ties and senior officials of Sri Lanka and India can meet at short notice whenever there are urgent matters to be discussed.

“The two countries share very close relations. Any incident that affects Indian nationals is of concern to us.

Hence if further information is available Sri Lanka is always ready to inquire into it,” he said, adding that, however, the current position of the Government had been clearly communicated to the Indian Government via statements issued in Colombo and New Delhi.

“The position of the Sri Lankan authorities is that our Navy could not have been involved in the fishermen’s killing because we did not have any Naval presence anywhere in the vicinity.”

The Indian Foreign Secretary was scheduled to arrive in the country last night and is due to leave this afternoon after holding two separate meetings with President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Foreign Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris. There are no outstation tours scheduled.The Foreign Secretary said, “The Mahabodhi Society in Chennai is a very important as it has a long standing connection between India and Sri Lanka - the Buddhist ties between the two countries.

There is also much pilgrim traffic from Sri Lanka to visit the site. The visit of the Foreign Secretary would be an opportunity for the Sri Lankan side to discuss with her as well, the well-being and the measures that are being taken to ensure safety of the Mahabodhi Society and the pilgrims.”The protestors in Tamil Nadu attacked the Mahabodhi Society early this week and two Sri Lankan bhikkhus; Chancellor of the Sabaragamuwa University and Chief Incumbent Ven. Samitha Thera and one Nepali priest, were injured in the incident.

He declined to comment if this issue had been blown out of proportion due to current election convulsions in Tamil Nadu or a strong pro-LTTE build-up in the region saying that he did not wish to comment on internal matters or developments in a foreign country.