DMK treasurer M K Stalin has called for a UN-monitored referendum in the northern and eastern areas of Sri Lanka, and said such a move was the only way to find a political solution to the ethnic strife in post-war Lanka.
Stalin’s comments came at a conference organised by a British all-party parliamentary committee on the Sri Lankan Tamil issue. He listed the number of Tamils killed, displaced, widowed and missing in the conflict and said, “The remaining Tamils are trying to work towards an honest and just solution. They await the response of the international community to end their suffering,” he said.
“The international community has called for a political solution. The UN Secretary General has time and again stressed on this in the General Assembly. A UN-monitored referendum is the only thing that holds the portents of a political solution in the island nation,” Stalin added.
Stalin, DMK parliamentary party leader T R Baalu, organising secretary T K S Elangovan and K S Radhakrishnan attended the conference in London on Wednesday on behalf of the DMK. Stalin and Baalu had handed over a petition, framed on the resolutions of the recent TESO conference, to the UN Under Secretary General on November 1 and to the UNHRC on November 6.