Assuring that their demand for Tamil Eelam is not against India's interest, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has said that it sought 'credible alternate proposals' to resolve the 25-year-old ethnic conflict.
'We believe firmly, our strong cultural ties to our brothers and sisters in India will help their policy makers to select a just and fair path towards our people,' senior LTTE leader KV Balakumaran said.
'We have said clearly Tamil Eelam is not against India; we will uphold Indian welfare as our own. There was a time when India looked after our welfare as her own. India will change its current policy towards us one day,' he told the Australian Tamil Broadcasting Corporation.
He said the LTTE was guided by the ideal of a separate homeland since its inception.
'However, the movement has articulated clearly that it is open to examining credible alternate proposals. We regret that this request has not received the attention it deserves,' Balakumaran said.
The LTTE leader said the outfit believed that India would change its stance against it, though the tigers could not wait until that happened.
'We believe firmly, our strong cultural ties to our brothers and sisters in India will help their policy makers to select a just and fair path towards our people. We cannot wait for India's change of mind to continue with our liberation. One fact should be clear, no one should doubt our friendship, and strong ties to India,' he said.
Balakumaran said the outfit regretted that New Delhi was viewing the problem only from its own point of view.
'Our regret is that the India's policy makers are viewing Tamil people's struggle through their lens of their country's political welfare,' he told ATBC, which was carried by the pro-LTTE Tamilnet website.
Balakumar said until India approached this 'intellectually and recognise that ours is a struggle for survival by oppressed people in the land of their birth, India cannot make any healthy, fruitful contribution.'
He admitted the Tamil struggle can be achieved only with the support of the International Community.
'We must inquire why International actors are responding differently to the national liberation struggles of different peoples,' he said.
In reply to another query, Balakumaran said: 'We (LTTE) traditionally equate strength with military might; but, military strength is only one aspect of the liberation struggle. Liberation struggle draws its strength from the determination of its people.'
Earlier, P Chandrasekaran Lankan Minister for Community Development and Social Inequity Eradication had said the LTTE had also evinced interest in Indian intervention and 'favourable signals' had emanated from the outfit in this regard.
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