Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday told Sri Lanka he was deeply concerned about the "deteriorating humanitarian situation" in the war-torn island and urged it to protect Tamil civilians caught in the conflict. Singh conveyed his worries when Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse telephoned him to discuss "recent developments" in the country, the Indian leader's spokesman said in New Delhi.
Singh is under mounting pressure from Indian Tamil political allies of his ruling coalition to halt arms supplies to Colombo and mediate in the conflict between government forces and the separatist Tamil rebels. "The prime minister expressed his deep concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the north of Sri Lanka, especially on the plight of the civilians caught in the hostilities," Singh's spokesman said.
On Friday, Sri Lanka said it would dispatch a delegation to India to defuse the mounting tensions between the nations over the conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Sri Lanka's minority Tamils share close cultural and religious links with the 55 million Tamils in the nearby south Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
A group of MPs from the Indian state have threatened to resign - a move that could destabilise the federal government - unless New Delhi puts pressure on Colombo to protect Tamil civilians. Sri Lankan troops are trying to capture the rebel political headquarters of Kilinochchi, 330 kilometres (205 miles) north of Colombo.
The ethnic Sinhalese-dominated government is engaged in one of its biggest offensives against the Tamil Tigers, who control part of the north of the island and want to carve out a separate state. Rajapakse's call came a day after Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon summoned the Sri Lankan ambassador to India, C.R. Jayasinghe, to discuss India's concerns.
Colombo insists the government is trying to avoid civilian casualties. India directly intervened in the Sri Lankan conflict in 1987 by sending troops to supervise a bilateral peace pact, but ended up fighting Tamil Tigers. New Delhi withdrew its troops after a bloody 32-month deployment during which it lost 1,200 soldiers. Since then, New Delhi has generally maintained a hands-off policy towards Sri Lanka.
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