EU Seeks Solution For Tamils

By Camelia Nathaniel-Sunday, May 10, 2015

The European Union (EU) has called on Sri Lanka to address the issues faced by the Tamils, as the country prepares to celebrate six years since the end of the war.

The EU Ambassador to Sri Lanka David Daly said that the EU would like to see Sri Lanka finding mechanisms to be able to work through complicated issues with all of the stake holders.

“I think there needs to be some sort of process that works on these issues at a political level. Nobody expects that the Sri Lankan army would move totally out of the North, and we recognise that what we are talking about is finding a solution to a complicated situation within a unified Sri Lanka. But on the other hand there are reports from many in the North about how they feel that the militarisation and the military presence is considered in an oppressive manner.

Therefore it is clear that balances have to be struck and we urge there would be a reconciliation process to find solution to these complicated problems and these have to come from within Sri Lanka itself,” Daly told The Sunday Leader.

He also said that the EU and other actors from the international community can help and perhaps there might be parts of the European experience that can be useful to Sri Lanka.

“But we have seen successive Sri Lankan governments also looking at the South African experience and perhaps other experiences. We urge that Sri Lanka find a good path for these complicated issues and if there are aspects of the South African model that would work, then we approve that. We have no selfish interest that only European experience should be used. But of course we do have a vast experience, and we have the peace process in Northern Ireland and we have the reconciliation in the Balkans and many we can offer. But ultimately the solutions have to come from within Sri Lanka,” he said.