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by Uditha Kumarasinghe

The People's Alliance yesterday welcomed the statement by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe made at an International Conference in Colombo on Thursday that he cannot go beyond the constitution of Sri Lanka and he will always work within the parameters set in the constitution.

"This is a welcome statement and the PA is happy about it and we want the Prime Minister to stick to it, PA Media Spokesman Dr. Sarath Amunugama told the PA weekly media briefing yesterday.

He said the Premier has also referred to a referendum at the end of the discussions. This is also something that the PA is quite happy about.

However, PA wants the Tokyo conference to go ahead. "This conference is a consortium of aid givers to Sri Lanka. So there is no reason to postpone or cancel that conference due to the LTTE's non-participation.

Amunugama said the strong view of the PA is that the conference at Tokyo must continue. Whether the LTTE participate in it or not is irrelevant to the issue of aid that is being given to Sri Lanka.

He said the Prime Minister who is talking so much about consultation never consulted the President as the Head of the State on this very important matter. The Premier without consulting President has sent a letter to Prabhakaran offering various proposals. This document has not been made public.

Therefore, the PA is not in a position to comment on the contents of this document because like on the previous occasions, PM has not informed the cabinet, press or the Editor's Guild about this document. He has sent it to Prabhakaran and sent a copy of it to President on Thursday. "So the PA cannot comment on this till the LTTE respond to it", he said.

PA objects very strongly to the statement made by Norwegian Prime Minister in Tokyo that the President was not important to the discussions. Secondly, PA also objects to his statement that the Government is not flexible enough. This is also a wrong statement. "Norwegian Prime Minister is not the imperial master of Sri Lanka. So what the President does and what the Government does is a matter for us and not for the Prime Minister of Norway, to consider", he said.

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