Fishermen row between India and Sri Lanka needs a humanitarian solution, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj told the parliament.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Sri Lanka this Friday in the shadow of a controversial statement by the country's prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on shooting Indian fishermen in Lankan waters.
"If we are going to resort to shooting then both the countries can keep shooting each other, because it's not just our fishermen who go there, their fishermen also come into our waters. We need to have an interim solution which is based on humanitarian grounds and not technicalities," Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said in Parliament today.
On Saturday, Mr Wickremesinghe told a Chennai based news channel Tanthi TV, "If someone tries to break into my house, I can shoot. If he gets killed, law allows me to do that."
Foreign secretary S Jaishankar said New Delhi may issue a statement later today.
Mr Modi is the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Lanka in 28 years. Rajiv Gandhi was the last prime minister to visit the country in 1987.
In Colombo, PM Modi will formally hand over 20,000 houses funded by the Indian government. He will also flag off a train from the Talaimannar railway station in the north, which is the nearest point of contact between the two countries. "We will be handing over homes in a part of Jaffna, which are essentially built for the internally displaced people. This is actually our flagship co-operation project," Mr Jaishankar told reporters.
The prime minister will also address the Sri Lankan Parliament before traveling to Tamil-dominated Jaffna. He will pay homage to the soldiers of the Indian Peace Keeping Force or IPKF who died in Sri Lanka fighting the civil war. The IPKF was invited to Sri Lanka to enforce the India-Sri Lanka accord of 1987.
DMK President M Karunanidhi slammed the Lankan president's remarks, calling them a "slap on the face" ahead of PM Modi's visit. "Ranil Wickremesinghe's statement saddenning. Does law permit killing of fishermen who stray?" Mr Karunanidhi asked in a statement.
He said PM Modi should speak about demilitarisation and the return of land to the Tamils in his address to the Sri Lankan Parliament.