Sri Lanka's new foreign minister, Mangala Samaraweera, said Sri Lanka "didn't really ask for help but India is in a mood to help Sri Lanka", following his visit to India to meet with this counterpart in New Delhi and the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi.
Speaking to Sri Lanka's Sunday Times, Mr Samaraweera compared Sri Lanka with Myanmar's recent development: “I think, frankly, not only India but the whole world should help Sri Lanka. This is Sri Lanka’s Burma moment.”
Denying that there was any discussion of demilitarisation and any pressure from India to implement the 13th amendment to the constitution which includes devolution of power to the provinces, Mr Samaraweera said that he had spoken about it "before he [Modi] had even mentioned it".
“What we told them, which they also agreed with, is we will take practical measures in the first 100 days,” he said. “Then, once this new system is in place, especially after the general election after April, sometime in June, we will certainly look at the full implementation of the 13th Amendment.”
“What is now needed is, not another Select Committee with another set of proposals, but the political will to implement what is there,” he added. “India realised that we were sincere in our attempts but as they said it must be done at our own pace.”
Following his visit to India, Sri Lanka's new prime minister, Ranil Wickremasinghe pledged to "implement the 13th amendment within a unitary framework".
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