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India as a co-chair: Norway blows hot and cold
By Thalif Deen
NEW YORK-- Norway is under intense pressure to co-opt India as the fifth co-chair of the Tokyo donor conference mandated to underwrite the peace process and launch the post-war reconstruction of Sri Lanka.

At the meeting of co-chairs in New York last week, the Norwegians did relent and invited Indian External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh. But since he had a busy schedule, the Foreign Minister was forced to skip the meeting.
According to one political source, when India wanted to send one of its senior officials to the meeting, the Norwegians demurred and told the Indians the invitation was not transferable because it was a "personal invitation."

"Clearly, the Norwegians invited the Foreign Minister because they were under pressure," a knowledgeable political source told The Sunday Times. "But his inability to attend the meeting gave the reluctant Norwegians an opportunity to keep the Indians at bay. They gave the invitation with one hand and withdrew it from the other". The current co-chairs - the US, Japan, the European Union and Norway - came into existence in the aftermath of the donor conference in Tokyo in June 2003. The pressure to include India as a co-chair has come from several countries, notably the US.

Asked for his comments, a senior Indian official in New York told The Sunday Times that the Foreign Minister was unable to attend the meeting because of a "prior engagement." But he said no one else from the Indian delegation had planned to be present at the meeting.

A spokesman for the Norwegian mission here in New York said Foreign Minister Jan Petersen did interact with his Indian counterpart Natwar Singh - but at a subsequent bilateral meeting.

Meanwhile, President Chandrika Kumaratunga told Mr. Petersen that the current "policy of appeasing" the LTTE was not working. She said the LTTE was operating in a climate of impunity characterised by growing recruitment of child soldiers and targeted assassinations. But still the LTTE has gone unpunished.

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