Gotabaya Rajapaksa to hold talks with TNA on June 16

A statement issued by TNA spokesman and Jaffna legislator M.A. Sumanthiran on Monday said the meeting with the President was to discuss ways of taking forward the process of constitutional reform

Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is scheduled to meet a delegation of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the main parliamentary grouping representing Tamils from Sri Lanka’s north and east, on Wednesday. It is Mr. Rajapaksa's first meeting - since he assumed office in November 2019 - with the TNA, whose leader and 88-year-old parliamentarian R. Sampanthan has, over the last decade, spearheaded the call for the long-pending political solution to Sri Lanka’s national question, through a constitutional settlement. A statement issued by TNA spokesman and Jaffna legislator M.A. Sumanthiran on Monday said the meeting with the President was to discuss ways of taking forward the process of constitutional reform. “The TNA sent its proposals for constitutional reform to the experts’ committee appointed by the President last December, and thereafter met the committee at their invitation in February this year,” it said.