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Government Ready for De-escalation of War With Rebels: S. Lankan President
Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has said her government is now prepared to de-escalate the military conflict with the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels during talks between the two sides.
But she ruled out the withdrawal of troops from the northern Jaffna peninsula before a completely viable political settlement is fully implemented, the state-run Daily News reported Wednesday from Paris, where the president is visiting.
While addressing a gathering of intellectuals at Sciences Po in Paris Tuesday during the two-day Sri Lanka Development Forum meeting, at which her war-torn country is seeking financial assistance from 25 donor countries and agencies, the president said the minority Tamil community as a whole does not want the war and this may have compelled the Tiger rebels to seek talks.
She said her government has given priority to ending the war. Her previous government, which took power in 1994, had invited the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels for talks which went on for eight months but the rebels had reneged and resumed their military action.
She noted that there had been three rounds of talks, two with the previous government and the other with the present one, but all of them had failed miserably.
The president said that now Norway had stepped in as facilitator but the LTTE has not yet come for talks and their conditions are not known. The government is inviting them unconditionally but the troops will not be pulled out of the country's north, she stressed.
She pointed out that even if the war ended, the problems of the Tamil people would have to be resolved and an extensive devolution of power to minority Tamils through a new constitution is the solution to the ethnic problems.
The president expressed her hope that the new constitution, which the previous parliament failed to pass in August this year due to the lack of a two-third majority, will be adopted early next year through a referendum.
LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran offered unconditional talks with the government late last month but they wanted a de-escalation in the war areas. The government responded last week by saying it was ready for peace talks without any cease-fire with the rebels.
The LTTE rebels said on Saturday in a statement issued from their London office that they would not hold talks with the government while fighting continues in the north and east of the country where they have been fighting since 1983 for a separate Tamil state.
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