Sonia talks to Karunanidhi as India prepares to send medical

Assuring India that it would ensure the safety and security of ethnic Tamils, Sri Lanka has expressed readiness to allow Indian medical aid to the affected people in the island country's embattled north, Indian Express reported.

Basil Rajapaksa, Special Advisor of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, met External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee yesterday and apprised him of the steps being taken by the Government to ensure that the rights of Tamils are not compromised during the ongoing military offensive against the LTTE.

Mr. Rajapaksa also held talks with Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon in the morning. “We have given every assurance to look after the human needs whichever way we can," Basil, the brother of President Rajapaksa, told reporters after the meeting.

India was concerned about the plight of civilians displaced by the fighting in northern Sri Lanka, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on October 18. In order to address the humanitarian situation, “continued and uninterrupted relief supplies'' need to be ensured for the displaced people, Singh said.

Singh's comments came after 37 Tamil lawmakers said on October 15 that they would resign from 541-member Indian Lower House within two weeks unless the government pressed Sri Lanka to halt its military offensive against Tamil Tiger rebels that was harming civilians.

Tamil support was crucial to Singh's 19-vote margin of victory in a confidence motion in July.

Sri Lanka's army was advancing on the headquarters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as it tried to end the group's 25-year struggle for a separate state in the north and east of the island nation south of India. Tamil Nadu was home to some 73,000 Sri Lankan refugees, most of them Tamils, according to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Soldiers attacked LTTE bases with artillery and mortar fire in the northern Mullaitivu district yesterday, inflicting “heavy damages'' on rebel positions, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement posted on its Website today.

Two civilians were killed in an artillery attack by the Sri Lankan soldiers in northern Kilinochchi district on October 24, the LTTE said in a statement.Meanwhile highly placed sources told TIMES NOW that UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi yesterday personally called DMK strongman M. Karunanidhi to assure him that New Delhi was using its diplomatic muscle to get Colombo to abjure violence and undertake negotiations with the LTTE.

Sonia also briefed Karunanidhi about External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart.

Sources added that Sonia's assurances have had the desired effect upon Karunanidhi and the DMK may withdraw its ultimatum threatening to pull out of the UPA over the Lankan Tamil issue.