“The Tamil National Alliance is not interested in talks. They are asking for things, which the majority community in Sri Lanka will not accept.”- Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa in Interview with “The Hindu”
By Suhasini Haidar
On his first visit after being sworn in as Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister, Mahinda Rajapaksa met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi. Mr. Mahinda told The Hindu about his hopes for debt-restructuring, and also about projects now on the anvil, although his government will not carry forward the projects agreed to by the previous Sri Lankan government.
Q;
You have had discussions at some length with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but no agreements were announced, especially on the $400-million Line of Credit offered by India for infrastructure. Tell us about the talks.
A;
We did speak about several agreements and we have agreed to some of the projects that [the Indian side] were interested in. It was a fruitful and successful meet, for both sides, I would say. The housing project is something that is a priority area for us, and we asked for more funding for that. We have a new initiative, to cover the whole country, every village, and we should like to get some support for that. Apart from housing, there were several projects we discussed.