Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived this afternoon in Jaffna, the first Indian PM to set foot in this war ravaged town in Sri Lanka's Tamil-dominated Northern Province, a day after he urged the country's new leaders to give greater autonomy to its Tamil minority.
PM Modi flew to Jaffna by an Indian Air Force chopper after brief visits to the holy town of Anuradhapura where he offered prayers at the sacred Mahabodhi tree and Talaimannar where he flagged off a train service.
He is only the second foreign leader to visit the battle-scarred region. British Prime Minister David Cameron had visited Jaffna during a Commonwealth summit in Colombo in November 2013. Jaffna is about 400 kilometres north of Colombo.
"Sri Lanka has lived through decades of tragic violence and conflict," PM Modi had said yesterday, while making a reference to three decades of bloody ethnic war which killed at least 100,000 people, mostly Tamils.
"We believe that early and full implementation of the 13th Amendment and going beyond it would contribute to this process," PM Modi said had yesterday after summit talks with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena.
The 13th amendment that followed the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord of July 1987 signed between then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and then Sri Lankan President JR Jayewardene envisaged the devolution of powers to the provinces in the midst of the island's bitter ethnic conflict.
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