Indian PM Narendra Modi gives strong message of support to Sri Lanka's Tamil minority
After long civil war that killed at least 100,000 people in Sri Lanka's far north, Indian PM gives strong message of support to minority Tamils
Narendra Modi visited Jaffna yesterday, making a highly symbolic first trip by an Indian prime minister to Sri Lanka's war-ravaged northern Tamil heartland after urging greater autonomy for the island's largest minority.
The Jaffna peninsula in Sri Lanka's far north was worst hit by the country's 37-year civil war that killed at least 100,000 people, mostly Tamils, and remains heavily militarised.
Officially, Modi was there to launch construction of a cultural centre funded by India and formally hand over thousands of houses to families made destitute by decades of war.
But his two-day visit was also a demonstration of regional superpower India's support for Sri Lanka's Tamils, who share close cultural and religious ties with those in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
On Friday he held talks with Sri Lanka's new President Maithripala Sirisena and urged the government to fully implement a 1987 constitutional provision giving Tamils greater autonomy in the majority-Sinhalese nation.
"Sri Lanka has lived through decades of tragic violence and conflict," Modi said on Friday.