Wednesday, 11th June 2014
By Sandun A. Jayasekera
Sri Lanka expects India to reciprocate and release 103 Sri Lanka fishermen presently being held in their custody now that Sri Lanka had done its bit and released 78 Indian fishermen while awaiting a fresh date for bilateral talks from the new government in New Delhi talks to resolve the fisheries dispute between the two countries, a senior official of t he Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Ministry said.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Monday instructed authorities to release Indian fishermen who had been apprehended by the Sri Lankan Navy for illegally fishing in Sri Lanka’s territorial waters as a goodwill gesture.
Director General, Fisheries Nimal Hettiarachchi told Daily Mirror that Sri Lanka had sent a formal invitation to the Indian Government after the collapse of the second round of talks between the representatives of t he fishermen of t he two countries on March 13. “The talks collapsed following the insistence by the Indian side to permit them to cross over to Sri Lanka’s territorial waters to carry out illegal and extremely harmful bottom trawling which we flatly rejected. Therefore, we have decided that future talks would have to be held between officials of the two countries and not between fisheries representatives,” Mr. Hettiarachchi said and added that they were awaiting a date for the talks from New Delhi.
The Sri Lanka Navy had arrested 78 Indian fishermen in the last couple of weeks who had been engaged in illegal unreported and unregulated fishing, after crossing Sri Lanka’s Maritime Boundary Line. These fishermen will only be released if the t wo countries agreed to release them bilaterally. Fishing vessels and fishing gear however would not be released. Some 103 Sri Lanka fishermen have also been apprehended by the Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa state governments, he said. “Our main focus is to compel Indian fishermen to adhere to the agreement reached during the talks held on January 26 and 27 in Chennai,” Mr. Hettiarachchi said.
From : http://epaper.dailymirror.lk/epaper/viewer.aspx
