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Sri Lankan Govt Rejects Tiger Rebels Ceasefire Offer
The Sri Lankan government has rejected leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Velupillai Prabhakaran's offer of a month-long unilateral ceasefire starting from midnight Sunday and declared military operations would continue.
A statement released Saturday night by the Presidential Secretariat as a press release from Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lakshman Kadirgamar said that the government considered a ceasefire as a consequent step that would arise when negotiations proceed to the mutual satisfaction of both sides. Until then military operations would continue.
The statement has been approved by President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who is currently in London.
"The government believes that further gestures of goodwill are unnecessary, when it has clearly indicated its wish to engage in talks with the LTTE forthwith on the substantial issues involved, with a view to resolving the ethnic question, ending the war and paving the way for a durable peace," the statement said.
It said that the government has noted that no reference to a ceasefire was made by LTTE leader Prabhakaran himself either at his meeting with Norwegian envoy Erick Solheim in his jungle hideout in the north of the country on November 1 or in his speech marking the so-called Hero's day for those killed by government forces on November 27.
The government repeats its call to the LTTE to engage honestly in this opportunity for peace. Until then, military operation will continue, the statement concluded.
The LTTE rebels declared on Thursday that they will start a month-long ceasefire on Sunday "as a goodwill measure to facilitate the peace process."
In a formal response to LTTE leader Prabhakaran's Hero's day speech in which he said he was ready to hold unconditional talks with the government, the government said that they were prepared for the talks while fighting is going on.
The LTTE rebels have been fighting since 1983 for a separate Tamil state in the north and east of the country. In the past they have entered peace negotiations with the government several times but they violated agreements with the government and resumed fighting soon after.
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