India has urged Sri Lanka to continue reconciliation efforts started at the end of the island nation's brutal 30-year conflict with Tamil separatists.

India's Minister of External Affairs S.M. Krishna, who is on a four-day visit to Sri Lanka, sounded positive on the Colombo government's efforts to move ahead with recommendations in a report by Sri Lanka's Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC). “These recommendations, when implemented, would mark a major step forward in the process of genuine national reconciliation, to which the Sri Lankan government is committed, Krishna said.

He added that he hoped that the Sri Lankan president would embark on the quest for genuine political reconciliation. However, LLRC was widely dismissed by international human rights groups.

The United Nations estimates around 100,000 people were killed, including up to 7,000 in the final, particularly brutal, year of fighting between the majority Sinhalese federal army and the Tamil rebels, officially called the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Krishna added that India remains fully committed toward rehabilitation, resettlement and well-being of displaced persons in the Northern Province. He also took part in an event marking the handing over of the first school under India’s project for repairs of 79 war-damaged schools in the three districts of Kilinochchi, Mulaittivu and Vavuniya in Northern Province.

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