Sri Lankan Tamil party to campaign for federal solution

Sri Lanka's main ethnic Tamil party Tamil National Alliance (TNA) in its manifesto for the forthcoming parliamentary election has called for a federal structure as the solution to the island's ethnic issue, sources close to the TNA said on Saturday.

The TNA has called for extensive power sharing arrangement within a unit of a merged northern and eastern provinces under a federal structure, saying this arrangement will help to attract direct foreign investment to the two provinces traditionally dominated by Tamils.

The TNA, generally regarded as a proxy party of the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, won 22 seats in the island's last parliamentary election held in April 2004.

Sri Lankan parties are busy in preparing for the parliamentary election to be held on April 8. The new 225-member parliament is expected to sit on April 22.

It will be the first parliamentary election held after the defeat of Tamil Tiger rebels, who had been fighting for more than two decades to carve out an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east before they were crushed by the government troops in May 2009.

Source:Xinhua