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Sri Lankan Minister coming today

By Amit Baruah

NEW DELHI MAY 1 .The Sri Lankan Economic Reforms Minister, Milinda Moragoda, and the head of the peace secretariat, Bernard Goonetileke, would be in the capital tomorrow.

Confirming this, a Foreign Office spokesman said today that the Japanese envoy to Sri Lanka, Yasushi Akashi, and the Norwegian Deputy Minister, Vidar Helgesen, had also come to New Delhi from Sri Lanka. While Mr. Moragoda will meet the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, Mr. Akashi will meet the National Security Adviser, Brajesh Mishra, and the Foreign Secretary, Kanwal Sibal.

The flurry of meetings comes as the LTTE has suspended peace talks after it was not invited to Washington for a "seminar" on Sri Lanka. The meetings are being seen as part of the effort to keep New Delhi informed about the current state of play in the "peace process".

The Foreign Office spokesman joined issue with a correspondent who wanted to know if India would play a more "active" role in Sri Lankan affairs. Wanting to know the definition of "active", the spokesman said India had been active as far as listening to some of the interlocutors in the peace process was concerned.

The Sri Lankan President and Prime Minister had visited India and the External Affairs Minister and the Foreign Secretary had gone over there. The spokesman added that he did not have any information on whether or not India would participate in a donor's meeting on Sri Lanka to be held in Japan in June. It may be recalled that India had participated in the Washington seminar in the absence of the Tigers.

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