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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, March 05, 2002

Sri Lankan PM Calls for Support to Ceasefire With Tamil Tiger

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe Monday call on the Sri Lankan people support Norway- brokered ceasefire between the government and separatist Tamil Tiger rebels.


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Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe Monday call on the Sri Lankan people support Norway- brokered ceasefire between the government and separatist Tamil Tiger rebels.

In a speech to parliament before a two-day debate on the ceasefire agreement, Wickremesinghe said the agreement he signed on February 22 with Tamil rebels was a ceasefire agreement and was not the final step in arriving at a political solution to the long running ethnic conflict in the country.

It was a vehicle for moving forward and addressing the needs of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the problems put forward by the Tamil people, he said.

The prime minister said the Norwegian government was only a mediator in the peace process and it was not the first time that a foreign country had assisted Sri Lanka. India tried to broker peace in the country but was sent back home, he added.

"What was said of India, then, is now being said of Norway by the same detractors. I tell them: do not make the same mistake again," he warned.

In a lengthy letter to Wickremesinghe last week, President Chandrika Kumaratunga voiced serious concerns about the threatening to the country's sovereignty and shunning substantive issues by some clauses in the permanent truce agreement.

She also questioned the Norway's role as facilitator in the current peace process and criticized the introduction of the concept of lines of control within territory of her country.

The leftist JVP or People's Liberation Front said that the truce agreement grants a separate state for Tamils.





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