Tamil, Muslim MPs to meet to discuss eastern situation

[TamilNet, Monday, 08 September 2003, 16:14 GMT]
At the conference convened Monday evening by Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister, Mr.Ranil Wickremasinghe, at his Temple Trees official residence in Colombo, to discuss the ethnic tensions between Muslim and Tamil communities in the East, parliamentarians of the Tamil National Alliance, Sri Lanka Muslim Congress and the Eastern Muslim Parliamentarians' Union attended and unanimously decided to meet again after holding extensive talks with the representatives of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, political sources in Colombo said.

The planned next meeting would come after Mr.Wickremasinghe, who is scheduled to leave for Malaysia on a two-day official visit Monday night, returned from Malaysia, the sources said.

A consensus prevailed among the participants irrespective of party differences that no steps should be taken to widen the difference of opinion between Tamils and Muslims in the East any further and that they should work for maintaining harmony between the two communities, sources said.

Leaders of the TNA, SLMC and the National Unity Alliance (NUA) agreed to arrive at a unanimous decision to all problems confronting the people of the east through mutual discussion, sources said.

Ministers John Amaratunge, Milinda Morogoda, Prime Minister's Special Advisor Mr.Bradman Weerakoon, Interior Ministry Secretary Mr.M.N.Junaid and Inspector General of Police Mr.T.E.Anandarajah participated at the conference along with the Prime Minister.

Parliamentarians Messrs.R.Sampanthan, V.Anandasangaree, A.Vinayagamoorthy, Selvam Adaikalanathan, M.K.Sivajilingam, Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam, N.Raviraj, Raja Kuhaneswaran, Sivasakthi Anandan, K.Thurairetnasingham and A.Chandra Nehru represented the TNA.

The SLMC was represented by its leader Minister Mr.Rauff Hakeem, Deputy Minister Mr. Basheer Segu Dawood and Mr.K.M.Thowfeek.

Parliamentarian Mr.M.L.A.M.Hisbullah represented the Eastern Muslim Parliamentarians Union, sources said.

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