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The Government of Australia will play a key role in the Sri Lankan Peace process and has pledged nine million Australian dollars as financial assistance to strengthen the process, Minister Professor G.L.Peiris said at the Cabinet media briefing yesterday.

Professor Peiris met Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in Canberra during his recent visit to Australia. Minister Downer had expressed appreciation of impressive achievements made in the peace process and stated that the Government of Australia was contributing 7.5 million dollars towards humanitarian work including rehabilitation and conflict reduction and a 1.5 million dollars for community based peace building.

Stating that it was not only governments that have confirmed their support for the peace process but also the private sector, Professor Peiris said that a high-powered Australian Trade delegation will visit Sri Lanka shortly to explore investment avenues. The delegation will include former Prime Minister of New South Wales Neville Wran.

Meanwhile, the three committees set up at the second session of talks at Nakon Pathom, Thailand in connection with political issues, immediate humanitarian and rehabilitation needs and matters relating to de-escalation and normalisation had met twice in Omanthai and Muhamalai and had discussions at district level at which military personnel were also present.

Apart from Australia, the Government of Japan has expressed willingness to be directly involved in the peace process and that the Government of Indonesia was keen to study the country's peace process so that they could use the knowledge to solve some of their own problems. Professor Peiris said the Government of Japan is involved in 45 per cent of the total development programmes in the country. (fw/rm)

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