COLOMBO, JULY 24: Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse would like India to get involved more directly in the peace talks between his government and the LTTE. According to informed sources in the government, Sri Lanka would prefer India to replace Norway as facilitator in the talks which broke down effectively in 2003.

The President himself did not specifically spell this out at a meeting with a delegation of the Indian Women’s Press Corps which visited the island nation last week, but he stressed the need for India’s greater involvement in Sri Lanka’s war against terrorism. ‘‘For everything we turn to India — in history and today.’’

It is not Rajapakse alone but almost anyone you meet in Sri Lanka who echoes this sentiment. The island’s big and influential neighbour should bail out the country in its ongoing guerrilla warfare against the LTTE, which is fighting for the rights of the country’s Tamil minority in the north and east of the nation.

Conscious that India has had its fingers badly burnt in the past, ‘‘India might not agree for a more active role because of its past history and experience’’ (India has banned the LTTE), the President is nevertheless hopeful. He believes only India has the capability and experience to bring Prabhakaran to the table.

The plebian from the heavily Sinhalese dominated southern part of the country wrested control of the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP) last year from the patrician Bandarnaike family which had considered the party its private property for half a century. He knows he is in a tight spot. The SLFP is in power thanks to

the support of the Sinhala nationalistic JVP and the JHU parties, both hawkish towards most of the LTTE’s long-standing demands.

When Rajapakse was elected in 2005, LTTE chief Prabhakaran seemed to open a window for renewal of talks, calling the President ‘‘a practical man’’. However, the position has deteriorated drastically since then. Over 800 people have lost their lives in incidents involving the army or the LTTE since the new president took over. Violence has further escalated of late. Last month, a bus was blown up by the LTTE in a remote area near Anuradhapuram, killing 64 Sinhalese villagers.

The following are extracts from the interaction between the Sri Lankan President and the visiting Indian journalists:

During his recent visit to Sri Lanka, Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran came up with some very specific proposals. Some kind of federal structure. Are you considering these proposals?

We have set up a committee of specialists and I have told them to study all these models, especially the Indian constitution, and come up with a Sri Lankan model because this is Sri Lanka. We are a small country.

So you think devolution of some powers is not really working.

Whatever the solution, everyone must be willing to accept it. Whether the south, the west or the north, the Sinhalese, the Muslims and the Tamils. We have invited all the political parties and experts. There will be a round-table conference. They will give me one or two proposals that I can put up to the LTTE. Because I want their views also on it.

People in India are puzzled about the reason for the breakdown of talks.

Prabhakaran is a man who does not understand democracy. It is difficult to persuade a man like this. He lives in a jungle surrounded by his own people. No one can meet him except a very few. How can you negotiate with him? He claims to represent the Tamil cause. Does he really represent Tamil aspirations? There are other political leaders. He has killed all the Tamil leaders who are not with him. You should know that 39 per cent of Colombo’s population is Tamil. Our deputy mayor of Colombo is Tamil.

Refugees from Sri Lanka are once again coming to India.

The LTTE wants people to go to India. They are organising their passage. We have our refugee camps in those places where the LTTE is powerful. If people don’t obey, then they shoot them in the night.

For all practical purposes, the talks between the government and the LTTE seem to be over.

Prabhakaran is a Sri Lankan and I am ready to meet him. If you come to politics you have to accept everything. I have enough faith I can do it. We are ready to talk to the LTTE, ready to work with them. He is not ready. India has the capacity to persuade this man Prabhakaran to come to the table. I am not for war.