The Hindu : Centre to consider T.N. CM's reservations on bridge proposal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Aug 22, 2003

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Centre to consider T.N. CM's reservations on bridge proposal

By Our Diplomatic Correspondent

NEW DELHI AUG. 21. The Centre said today that the reservations expressed by the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, on the proposal for a land bridge between India and Sri Lanka would be "kept under consideration" while examining it.

The Minister of State for External Affairs, Digvijay Singh, told the Rajya Sabha that Ms. Jayalalithaa had in a letter expressed reservations about the land bridge proposal and a ferry service between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka.

In a separate response, Mr. Singh said the involvement of the U.S. State Department in organising a "Conference on Kashmir Update" on July 1 in Washington D.C. was "politically and diplomatically inappropriate".

"The organisation of conferences and seminars is an internal matter of the U.S. State Department. However, the Government believes that the involvement of the U.S. State Department in organising this conference was politically and diplomatically inappropriate," he said.

"The U.S. has conveyed that the conference does not constitute or reflect any change in its position on Jammu and Kashmir and had reiterated that it does not seek to play a mediatory role between India and Pakistan," he added.

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