Srilanka

Rajiv misled LTTE, claims Vaiko

New Delhi, Dec 3 (IANS) MDMK leader Vaiko Sunday stood by his assertion that former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, while brokering peace in Sri Lanka, had deliberately misled the Tamil Tigers before signing the 1989 peace accord that saw the induction of an Indian peace-keeping force in the island nation.

'I stand by it,' he maintained in an interview to Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN's Devil's Advocate programme aired Sunday.


Vaiko also acknowledged that Congress president Sonia Gandhi's views and his on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) chief Veluppillai Prabhakaran were radically different.


Asked about his statement that Rajiv Gandhi, during the run-up to signing the peace pact with then Sri Lankan President Julius Jayawardene, had deliberately misled Prabhakaran and even 'entrapped' him, said: 'What I have said is part of history.'


On his eulogising Prabhakaran, whom Gandhi views as the principal accused in the 1991 assassination of her husband, Vaiko said: 'You see, this issue is a very emotional issue and this doesn't come in the way of our cordiality.'


Rajiv Gandhi was killed by an LTTE woman bomber during an election rally at Sriperumbudur near Chennai on May 21, 1991.


Vaiko's party openly supports the Tamil Tigers in their fight for a separate state to be carved out of Tamil areas of Sri Lanka's northeastern region.


He was in jail in Tamil Nadu for 19 months during 2002-03 for expressing support to the LTTE that is outlawed in India.

© 2006 Indo-Asian News Service

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