COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka’s justice minister told Parliament this week that the country holds no prisoners officially classified as “political prisoners,” a legalistic distinction that has reopened one of the most sensitive disputes of the postwar era and raised questions about the government’s commitment to a promise made to Tamil voters by both President Anura Kumara Dissanayake and his party’s election manifesto. Harshana Nanayakkara, the minister of justice and national integration, sa

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — Thuraireasa Ravikaran, a member of Parliament for the Vanni district from the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi, or ITAK, has urged the government to remove Indian trawlers and other vessels that have long crowded Myliddy Fisheries Harbour, saying they are preventing local fishing families from fully using a harbour that was once one of northern Sri Lanka’s most important fishing centers. Mr. Ravikaran raised the issue at a meeting of Parliament’s Ministerial Consultative Committe

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A senior Tamil political leader has urged European diplomats to press for a separate scientific investigation into the Chemmani mass grave, arguing that establishing when the victims were buried could help determine who was in authority at the time and ultimately identify those responsible. C.V.K. Sivagnanam, acting president of the Ilankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi, or ITAK, said he made the request during a meeting in Jaffna with a high-level European delegation that included th