Speaking to BBC Sandeshaya he said his personal opinion was that the country needed a new constitution.

Wickremaratne was in London where he addressed a forum organized by the Non Resident Tamils of Sri Lanka (NRTSL).

Speaking to BBC Sandeshay further, he described as a positive tendency the participation in the constitutional process of those who had once fought for a separate state.

East against a merging

The MP said a vast majority of people in the east were against a merging of their province with the north, stressing that any change should be effected only with the consent of the people concerned.

There should be no undue fears over calls for a federal constitution, he said, and noted that federalism was just another form of governance.

As far back as 1926, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike first proposed federalism for Sri Lanka, he said.

Accepting or rejecting federalism is a different matter, but the right to propose any form of governance within one country should be recognized, he added.

‘There have to be compromises’

Meanwhile, Dr. Wickremaratne urged Tamils in London to support the constitutional reforms process currently underway in Sri Lanka.

Colombogazette.com reports that he had told the NRTSL forum that it would be impossible and unrealistic to expect all aspirations and demands of everyone to be met when the new constitution is drafted.

“There have to be compromises,” he said.

‘We have to recognise that the process of constitution reform currently taking place in Sri Lanka may not result in the ‘best constitution for Sri Lanka’, but we have to aim it to be the ‘best constitution for Sri Lanka in the context of the current realities and circumstances’’.