Diplomacy

Sri Lanka: ‘Re-vitalising’ India relations even more after the polls

- by N Sathiya Moorthy

he results of the 17 August parliamentary polls have indicated the continuance of a ‘national government’ of the type that newly-elected President Maithripala Sirisena and his chosen Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had put together in January.

Considering that there is also a greater scope and urgent need for re-vitalising Sri Lanka-India relations than ever before, the two nations can now work on restoring the earlier confidence, brick by brick – but with all-round reversals from time to time. How they work on it all could also determine the nature and course of India’s Indian Ocean neighbourhood relations, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi had ‘re-vitalised’ with his three-nation tour in March this year.

India-Sri Lanka relations are like none other in bilateral relations for both. Going beyond the ‘China angle’ – it used to be the US during the ‘Cold War’ era – the two South Asian neighbours are bound by the ‘ethnic issue’, with constant reverberations in southern Tamil Nadu – often, independent of the party or leader in power at the Centre.

It is one such time again for India and India-Sri Lanka relations. Independent of whoever is in power in Sri Lanka, the nation can breathe easy that the Indian position over war-time ‘accountability issues’ at the UNHRC would not (have to) change at the September session in Geneva. India too would not have to review its position, despite pressure from the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in Sri Lanka, over larger issues of ‘war-time accountability’ and blame-fixing.

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Taliban succession games: What it means for India

- by India Writes Network

The world was taken by surprise recently when it was announced that Mullah Omar, the undisputed and feared leader of Taliban, had died two years ago in a Karachi hospital. Taliban Spokesman Zabhiullah Mujahid confirmed the report, but disputed that Mullah Omar died in a Karachi hospital, saying that he never left Afghanistan after the US attack in 2001. Mystery over circumstances and location where Mullah Omar died will continue to persist, though everyone is in agreement that the Taliban supremo is no longer alive.

Even before the formal announcement of Omar’s death, sources in Taliban had begun telling journalists that Mullah Akhtar Mansoor had been chosen as the successor. He was reportedly elected as emir at a consultative meeting of the group after news of Omar’s death became public.

Mansoor was earlier Omar’s deputy and headed the Taliban’s seven member consultative council. Khalifa Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of chief of Haqqani network, Jalaluddin Haqqani, and former deputy chief justice during Taliban era, Maulvi Haibatullah, were named as Mansoor’s deputies.

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