Lanka seeks India's role to tame Tigers

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (R) shakes hands with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse (L) prior to a meeting in New Delhi yesterday. Rajapakse arrived in India for a four-day visit which he has said will aim to secure a greater role for India in the island's fragile peace process. The trip is the first foreign visit by Rajapakse since he took office after winning the November 17 presidential election.. PHOTO: AFP

The details of the talks in New Delhi were not available. However, the focus is to secure New Delhi's increased involvement in the island's troubled peace process.

Rajapaksa arrived in India on Tuesday for a four-day visit, his first foreign trip since taking office after winning the November 17 presidential election.

Indian officials said that during a series of meeting in New Delhi with Indian leaders, including PM Manmohan Singh, the neighbours will explore ways to consolidate bilateral ties, particularly in the economic field.

Sri Lankan President after his arrival at New Delhi airport (Reuters photo)

Rajapaksa was slated to meet the leader of the Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, as well as the ministers of commerce and industry, home, shipping, road transport, and highways and planning.

Ahead of his visit, Rajapaksa said last week in Colombo that he would use the trip to seek New Delhi's increased participation in the island nation's faltering peace effort with the Tamil Tigers.

"They are our closest neighbour and it is very important for me to have them involved in the process," Rajapaksa told reporters.

The president said he expects India to play a similar role to that of the four so-called "co-chairs" -- the United States, the European Union, Japan and Norway.

The diplomatic quartet are Sri Lanka's key backers and they preside over international efforts to raise money in support of the island's efforts to end three decades of ethnic bloodshed that has claimed over 60,000 lives.

Rajapaksa said he was also keen to study India's system of devolution as it could be a model for Sri Lanka to grant extensive power to minority Tamils.

"I am for a unitary state with maximum possible devolution," he said. "I want to study the Indian model and I am sure we can learn from that."

Rajapaksa has gone back on a promise by his party to accept a federal system of government in exchange for ethnic peace as initially agreed with the Tamil Tigers during a round of talks in December 2002.

A recent escalation of violence has heightened fears that Sri Lanka could be slipping back to war despite a February 2002 truce with the rebels.

In the latest bloodletting, suspected Tiger rebels staged two bomb attacks in the island's embattled regions on Tuesday, killing 10 soldiers and a constable.

The soldiers were ambushed with a Claymore mine at Puloly in the Jaffna peninsula, where 18 soldiers were killed in two similar attacks earlier this month, an official said.