TULF invites Karunanidhi to mediate Lankan crisis

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi has been invited by the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) to visit Sri Lanka and help resolve the escalating strife between government forces and the rebel Tamil Tigers.

TULF has written to Karunanidhi, who is also the DMK president, asking him to mediate in the ethnic strife in Tamil Nadu's "immediate neighbourhood".

"The urgent need has now come for you to intervene," TULF president V. Anandasangaree writes in the letter that has been released to the media.

"Unlike in the past, today even the Sinhalese people welcome your intervention. All Sri Lankans want a just solution (to the issue of power sharing between ethnic groups), so that all can live in peace".

The TULF leader even suggests an India-like model of constitution for Sri Lanka.

"One important feature in the Indian constitution is that it is not referred to as 'federal' or 'unitary' state", she said in her letter, adding this kind of federalism could yield a solution to the ethnic problem.

The invitation comes even as hundreds of refugees have been arriving on the Tamil Nadu coast from northern Sri Lanka since January this year when talks between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the government broke down.