Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi and President of Sri Lanka J. R. Jayewardene sign the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord on ethnic issues.

Rajiv Gandhi was an Indian statesman and pilot who served as the prime minister of India from 1984 to 1989. He took office after the assassination of his mother, then–prime minister Indira Gandhi, to become at the age of 40 the youngest Indian prime minister. He served until his defeat at the 1989 election, and then became Leader of the Opposition, Lok Sabha, resigning in December 1990, six months before his own assassination.

Junius Richard Jayewardene, commonly referred to by his initials JR, was a Sri Lankan lawyer, public official and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka from 1977 to 1978 and as the second President of Sri Lanka from 1978 to 1989. He was a leader of the nationalist movement in Ceylon and served in a variety of cabinet positions in the decades following independence. A longtime member of the United National Party, he led the party to a landslide victory in the 1977 parliamentary elections and served as prime minister for half a year before becoming the country's first executive president under an amended constitution.

The Indo-Sri Lanka Peace Accord was an accord signed in Colombo on 29 July 1987, between Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J. R. Jayewardene. The accord was expected to resolve the Sri Lankan Civil War by enabling the thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of Sri Lanka and the Provincial Councils Act of 1987. Under the terms of the agreement, Colombo agreed to a devolution of power to the provinces, the Sri Lankan troops were to be withdrawn to their barracks in the north and the Tamil rebels were to surrender their arms.