Putting Indo-Lanka ties on a sounder footing

THE crucial importance of strengthening and sustaining this country's friendly ties with India-particularly in the context of efforts to resolve our conflict peacefully - has been freshly underlined by a current good will visit to India by Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera.

The visit comes at a time when fresh efforts are underway, this time under the guidance of President Mahinda Rajapakse, to relaunch the Government's negotiatory process with the LTTE.

Given India's predominant position in South Asia and the possible impact a peace settlement could have on some of India's vital interests, it only stands to reason that Sri Lanka should work cooperatively with India in the peace-building context and consistent interaction between the countries' political leaders - from this viewpoint - is perfectly in order.

India has always been supportive of our efforts to resolve our problem peacefully, in accordance with the legitimate aspirations of all our communities, and there is no doubt that India would continue to extend to us her goodwill and support in our peace-making efforts.

However, nothing could be left to chance or taken for granted and constant rapport between Sri Lanka and India on issues that matter is the best approach to sustaining India's goodwill and moral backing in our peace-building exercise.

In fact, the international climate is highly conducive to winning global support for our peace effort. India, under the Manmohan Singh administration is aiming at becoming-among other things-an economic leader in the Asian region.

Gone are the days when Cold war compulsions drove the states of this region into mutually - antagonistic ideological camps and triggered in South Asia highly costly arms races which deprived its masses of much needed economic sustenance.

In the post - Cold War world, however, economic pragmatism has emerged as a guiding factor or shaping influence of the foreign policies of the majority of states in this region with India forging ahead as an economic heavy weight.

In keeping with these new interests, India is seeking to strengthen its economic ties with the predominant powers of the West rather than regulate its external ties on outmoded concepts, deriving mainly from Cold War thinking.

Terror, no doubt, is continuing to cause considerable concern the world over, with India too having her share of worries on this score but there could be said to be a confluence of interests between India and the West in this changed international climate.

The time, therefore, could not have been riper for a strengthening of Sri Lanka's ties with India. The emerging consensus over a good part of the globe is that the world builds up and sustains mutually-beneficial economic and material links which would accrue to the benefit of their peoples rather than succumb to divisive ideologies which would keep the world on the boil.

Thus, there is an emerging, worldwide, decisive "no" to terrorism and its purveyors. Sri Lanka too must seek to gain from these changed global perspectives on the challenges confronting the world and should go on to strengthen its ties with states such as India, which are emerging as shaping influences of the new world order.

A coming together of the states advocating peaceful, progressive change would prove the biggest stumbling block to the practitioners of terror.

In fact the consolidation of this pro-peace group would trigger alarm bells in the terror camp and compel the latter to re-think its options and strategies. By identifying itself with the states advocating peaceful change, Sri Lanka is, thus, advancing its national interests.

But there is no getting away from the fact that Lanka's allies would always insist on a peaceful, negotiated settlement here. This is a certainty.