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Sri Lanka peace talks on ‘backburner’

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s foreign minister ruled out an early resumption of peace talks to end a three-decade conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels but said a deal on disbursing tsunami relief was possible.

“A formal resumption of the peace process is very much on the backburner,” Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar told a meeting of the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of Sri Lanka on late Thursday.

Kadirgamar however said the government could sign a deal brokered by Norway with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to provide a formula for distributing tsunami relief as long as it was not seen giving the rebels de facto recognition as a government. The remarks came as President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s administration faced pressure from its Marxist coalition partner, the JVP or People’s Liberation Front, which is opposed to any involvement of rebels in relief operations that could give them political recognition.

The Marxists initially warned they would pull out of the government if the rebels were given any official role in tsunami relief operations.

“What the JVP will do when it (the joint mechanism,) is signed and sealed, I do not know,” Kadirgamar said. “Indications are that that they will voice opposition. If that opposition remains the same after they have seen the fine print, we do not know.”

Peace talks have been stalled since April 2003. In April 2004, Kumaratunga won a general election with the support of the Marxists who oppose any moves to divide the country along religious or ethnic lines.

The previous government had broadly agreed to establish a federal state in Sri Lanka to resolve a long-running separatist conflict which claimed more than 60,000 lives between 1972 and 2002. Despite the suspension of face-to-face discussions, the two parties are abiding by a ceasefire arranged by Norway and in place from February 23, 2002.

The foreign minister said Colombo’s main objective now was to enter into a “joint mechanism” with the Tigers to distribute foreign aid for tsunami victims in the island’s northeast, much of which was held by the rebels.

“I am told that process (of a joint mechanism) is moving. It is not standing still. It is not going backwards,” Kadirgamar said.

Nearly 31,000 people were killed in Sri Lanka by the December 26 tsunamis and two thirds of the victims were in the troubled northern and eastern regions, parts of which are held by the Tigers.

The guerrillas earlier this month said they agreed to the joint mechanism proposed by Norway, but there has been no formal announcement from Colombo on the exact contents of the proposed deal. The Tigers had seen the joint tsunami relief mechanism as a spring board for setting up an interim political administration.

Norway had expected a deal on tsunami aid to be concluded late February or early March, but the two sides had failed to agree on the wording of an agreement, diplomatic sources said. Former air force chief Harry Gunatillake said the government was trying to put off resuming peace talks in a bid to placate the JVP. afp

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