Amid continued agitation here over Sri Lankan Tamil issue, National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon today said it is in India's interest that Sri Lanka solves its ethnic issues and make the minority community confident of its fate there.
"Equally, it is in our interest that Sri Lanka remains a close friend and does not affect our security adversely", Menon said here.
"It is clearly in India's interest that Sri Lanka solves its ethnic problems in a manner which makes each community, particularly the Sri Lankan Tamils, confident that they are masters of their own fates, their own destiny and free to enjoy their rights within the framework of a united Sri Lanka," Menon said.
He was delivering the 12th V K Krishna Menon Memorial Lecture organised by The Indian Society of International Law.
Menon also said two national interests often do not coincide and the country has to choose between them.
"Equally it is in our interest that Sri Lanka remains a close friend and does not affect our security adversely. But the demand of these two interests do not always coincide and we then have to chose between them," he said.
The NSA added the definition of security has expanded and now it "includes economic security, food security, energy security and other aspects of human security in addition to the traditional hard aspects of defence and law and order."
He said the new domains of space, cyber and information technology have changed the definition of security along with the responsibility of the society and state to deal with it.
Comparing the present security environment with Cold War era, he said the power today is more evenly distributed but at the same time it is more "lumpy" in nature.
