The Hindu : No plan to lift ban on LTTE: PM

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 12, 2002

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No plan to lift ban on LTTE: PM

By Our Special Correspondent

The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, coming out from the Angkor Vat temple during his official visit to Siem Reap, north-west of Phnom Penh in Cambodia on Thursday. — PTI

NEW DELHI APRIL 11. The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, has rejected the request of the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, Velupillai Prabakaran, for lifting the ban on his organisation. "Aisa koi irada nahin hai'' (there is no such intention), he said in response to questions after his return from his five-day visit to Singapore and Cambodia.

Responding to another question, Mr. Vajpayee said the Government had not received any request from the LTTE ideologue, Anton Balasingham, for transit through India to attend peace talks with the Sri Lankan authorities in Thailand.

Amit Baruah earlier reported from Bangkok:

Mr. Vajpayee said that India would consider sympathetically a proposal for facilitating medical treatment for Mr. Balasingham, which is pending with India.

Addressing a press conference on board a special Air India plane at the Bangkok airport after arriving from Siem Reap in Cambodia en route to New Delhi, the Prime Minister made it clear that India did not wish to get involved in the proposed peace talks between the Tigers and the Sri Lankan Government.

There was only one proposal before the Government and that related to helping with the treatment of Mr. Balasingham. "If he wants such help, we will consider the case sympathetically....,'' he said.

Responding to a query on the LTTE chief, Velupillai Prabakaran's remarks at a press conference on Wednesday, Mr. Vajpayee categorically ruled out India's involvement in the talks between the LTTE and Colombo.

"We don't want to intervene in it. '' (Mr. Prabakaran said yesterday that India's participation in the peace process was "crucial" and that without its support and sympathy the ethnic problem in the island country could not be solved).

On the demand from some constituents of the ruling National Democratic Alliance that the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, be removed from office, he said the issue would be discussed during the Bharatiya Janata Party's national executive in Goa beginning tomorrow.

``Kuch bhi kehne se pehle, mein apne sathiyon se salah lena pasand karoonga" (before saying anything, I would like to consult my colleagues), Mr. Vajpayee said, adding that he did not get a chance to do so in the last few days because of his visit to Singapore and Cambodia. He would think about Gujarat after returning home.

Asked how he felt half way through his term in office, he said: "Aadhi rat beet gayee, aadhi baki hai" (half the night has passed, half remains).

And on his plans to "control" the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal, which continued to pull him down, Mr. Vajpayee said "Woh hamari problem hai, woh chhod dijiye hamare upar" (that is our problem, leave it to us). In response to another query, the Prime Minister admitted that the election results had not been according to the BJP's expectations.

On the claim that the Centre's policies were behind the electoral reverses, he said they would learn from the verdict and run the party and the Government better.

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