India steps in, sends relief supplies to Lankan Tamils

India has started sending humanitarian aid for Tamil civilians trapped in the battle zone in north Sri Lanka.

Announcing this at a press conference here on Monday, convened ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s trip to China and Japan, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon said some supplies had already been sent through agencies such as the International Committee of the Red Cross. Some convoys had got through to the people trapped in the fighting and Delhi was trying to ensure that its supplies too reached them through such agencies.

Menon said India saw the present situation in Sri Lanka as a humanitarian crises. On the larger issue of settling the conflict, Delhi continued to suggest a political settlement within a united Sri Lanka in which all communities were "comfortable." He said the conflict could not be settled militarily.

Without giving details, Menon said the aid was expected to be in the form of food and other essential items for civilians trapped in or around the war zone, as the Sri Lankan army tried to wrest Killinochi town and others areas from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

The present gesture makes a political point. But it cannot be compared with the 1987 symbolic air drop of relief supplies when the Sri Lankan military laid siege to Jaffna peninsula.

That was seen as arm-twisting by Delhi.

This time the relief supplies will go through international agencies, with Sri Lanka’s concurrence.

Menon did not confirm reports that External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee was travelling to Colombo to discuss the crises with the Sri Lankan government.

"Nothing is settled" on the issue, he said.

expressbuzz