The Hindu : `Ayodhya issue should be resolved through dialogue'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 03, 2002

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`Ayodhya issue should be resolved through dialogue'

By Our Special Correspondent

A girl walks through the debris of her house in Ahmedabad on Saturday. — AP

CHENNAI March 2. Insisting that the Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, was doing his "best in a difficult situation" following the Godhra incident, the Tmail Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, today said that the Ayodhya dispute must be resolved through dialogue between leaders of the Hindu and Muslim communities.

"It should be resolved through dialogue. And since the matter is already before the court, nothing should be done in violation of court orders," she told presspersons at the Secretariat after assuming office. "I am told that the Muslims themselves do not want a mosque on that site," she said.

Asked whether her statement on differentiation between violence against the majority and minority communities had not become a tool in the hands of Hindutva elements, she said the statement had not touched on the issue of VHP mobilisation. "That is a separate issue."

On her meeting with the senior adviser to the Sri Lankan President, Lakshman Kadirgamar, she said she had conveyed to him the State Government stand against the use of Tamil Nadu as a base for the LTTE. Mr. Kadirgamar's party (SLFP) too was against it, she pointed out. Mr. Kadirgamar had met her to deliver a personal message from the Sri Lankan President, Chandrika Kumaratunga.

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