India yesterday ruled out all military support to the beleaguered Sri Lankan army fighting Tamil Tiger rebels in the north of the island republic. But it offered humanitarian aid and assistance in working out a peaceful settlement of the 17-year ethnic conflict in which over 60,000 have died.
"There will be no military intervention," the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, said after an 80-minute meeting with all political parties. India, he declared, had offered humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka, whose military has been forced to retreat by the Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam (LTTE) since November in the battle for Jaffna, the rebels' cultural and political capital.
Leaders of two regional parties in southern Tamil Nadu state, home to millions of Tamils, demanded that the government funnel humanitarian aid through the International Committee of the Red Cross and not via Colombo.
Mr Vajpayee said India would work towards brokering a "peaceful negotiated settlement" of Sri Lanka's civil war, provided Colombo and the LTTE agreed. But the rights of Sri Lanka's minority Tamils should be protected, he added.
Meanwhile, the four-day visit by India's Air Chief Marshal AY Tipnis to Sri Lanka at the weekend fuelled speculation in military and diplomatic circles that Delhi was preparing to help evacuate Sri Lankan troops. But Indian officials stressed his visit was unconnected to the latest fighting in Sri Lanka, having been fixed several months earlier.
Security has been tightened in Tamil Nadu's coastal areas where the inflow of Tamil refugees fleeing the war zone continued for the fifth consecutive day.
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka yesterday rejected a temporary ceasefire offered by Tamil Tigers to allow troops to vacate Jaffna as the government stepped up air strikes in the region.
