Tamil leaders request President to deploy Coast Guard to protect northern fishermen
Friday, 3 April 2015 00:46
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President Maithripala Sirisena yesterday held a meeting at the President’s Office with the parliamentarians of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and other Tamil political leaders of North to discuss the northern fishermen’s issues.
President Sirisena met with TNA leader R. Sampanthan, MPs Suresh Premachandran and Selvam Adaikalanathan, and members of the fishermen’s delegation who attended the third round of talks in Chennai recently.
At the meeting Northern Province Minister of Fisheries B. Deniswaran has presented a memorandum to the President seeking the deployment of the Lankan Coast Guard in the Palk Strait and Palk Bay to protect Lankan Tamil fishermen from Indian poachers and drug smugglers, Express News Service reported.
The memorandum describing the Indian intrusions as a clear violation of the boundary agreement of 1974, sought effective steps against poaching and also smuggling of drugs from India through the North Lankan coast.
The President is expected to convene a larger meeting with the stakeholders of the issue later this month, to discuss the Tamil Nadu fishermen’s 7-point charter of demands.
At the third round of talks between the representatives of Sri Lankan and Tamil Nadu fishermen associations held in Chennai on March 24, the Sri Lankan fishermen agreed to consider the proposals put forward by their Indian counterparts.
The Sri Lankan representatives are expected to place the assurances made by the Tamil Nadu side before their community in the North and East provinces and to communicate the decision to the Tamil Nadu government by May.
The fishermen’s associations of the two countries will meet for the fourth time in mid-May at Colombo.
