COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – India has urged the Sri Lankan government and an ethnic Tamil party to resume stalled negotiations aimed at a meaningful devolution of power to resolve a decades-old ethnic problem.
India's External Affairs Minister Salman Kurshid's comments Monday came after the Tamil National Alliance party swept a provincial election, seen as backing for wider regional autonomy in areas ravaged by a civil war which ended in 2009.
Kurshid says he hopes the Sri Lankan leadership that ended the war and held the elections will now "work for genuine reconciliation."
The talks stalled in 2011 when the government said it wanted a Parliamentary committee to discuss devolution rather than through talks with the TNA.
India has a major interest in the dispute because southern India is home to 60 million Tamils.
