Leader of the Opposition and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) R Sampanthan told the United Nation’s Resident Coordinator Terrence D Jones yesterday that despite a lot of work done regarding a new constitution since 1998, political will and courage is lacking ‘to take it further’.
Sampanthan had highlighted the need to adopt a new constitution ‘to ensure the non-recurrence of the past’ and had flagged key concerns of Tamil people when Jones was making a courtesy call on him in Parliament according to a media statement released by the TNA.
In a veiled reference to State Minister Vijayakala Maheswaran of the United National Party (UNP) bing nostalgic about the LTTE and calling for its resurrection, Sampanthan said ‘when the government overreacts to the extremists its only becomes an impediment to achieving reconciliation”.
He also complained over the slow pace in which lands occupied by the military are being released and insisted that relevant decisions should be made by the Government and not the security forces.