Friday, May 17, 2002
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By Nirupama Subramanian
Ms. Kumaratunga has been reported by The News of Pakistan as having told journalists at the United Nations— where she was attending a special General Assembly session on children— that when the two sides to the dispute had failed to resolve the problem, it was time to call in a third party. Officials here said that it was difficult to judge from the reported version what the President had actually said and that they were awaiting a transcript of her conversation with journalists where she had made the statement. But if the remarks attributed to her were correct, then this would be the first time that Sri Lanka had expressly called for third-party involvement in the dispute, the officials said. The former Foreign Minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, who is now her foreign policy adviser, said he was trying to contact Ms. Kumaratunga, now on a private visit to the U.K., for a clarification on the remarks attributed to her. ``I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the remarks because I was not there. But if the remarks have been made, then it is surprising because Sri Lanka has never called for third-party mediation in Kashmir. We have always maintained that it is for the two parties to resolve it between themselves,'' Mr. Kadirgamar told The Hindu. The fact that there was a third-party facilitating the resolution of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka could not be a parallel for Kashmir, he added. Sri Lanka's official line on Kashmir has always been cautiously neutral, backing neither the Indian or Pakistani positions on the dispute. Steering clear of stating explicitly that it was a bilateral dispute, Sri Lankan pronouncements on the issue have called on both countries to work towards a quick resolution of the conflict in the interests of peace and stability of the region. Within SAARC, Sri Lanka has resisted Pakistan's efforts to bring the Kashmir dispute on the agenda, but members agreed at the 1997 Male summit on the principle of informal discussions ``among the countries on political matters''. Ms. Kumaratunga was quoted as citing the example of Sri Lanka, which had invited Norway to facilitate talks between the Government and the LTTE to resolve the two decade-old ethnic conflicts in the island. The newspaper reported that Ms. Kumaratunga declined to be a mediator in the India-Pakistan dispute over Kashmir, and said that such a role should be given to someone outside the South Asian region. Officials here said they were not aware of any shift in the policy on Kashmir by the United National Front Government, with which the President is in a tense co-habitation. The Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Tyronne Fernando, is on an official visit to the Maldives and was not available for comment.
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