Dates, venue for meeting to be announced

LTTE agrees to review truce

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have agreed to meet Government negotiators to review the implementation of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) following last Friday's assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar.

Anton Balasingham, the political advisor and the chief peace negotiator of the LTTE, told TamilNet that the LTTE leadership has accepted the Norwegian invitation to "participate in a review of the implementation of the Ceasefire Agreement in order to find practical ways of ensuring full compliance by both parties."

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga on Thursday wrote to Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, seeking immediate talks with the LTTE to review the CFA.

The President requested "an urgent meeting between the Government and the LTTE...to review the practical functioning of the ceasefire with a view to preventing further killings and other violations".

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen and Deputy Minister Vidar Helgesen met Balasingham at his London residence on Wednesday and handed over proposals to LTTE Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran calling for urgent talks on problems relating to the implementation of the CFA.

The LTTE leader has positively considered the Norwegian proposals and agreed to send a high level delegation to participate in the talks with the Government, Balasingham said.

Norwegian embassy spokesman Tom Knappskog said it would be a discussion on the implementation of the ceasefire. "It is not the resumption of peace talks, only a review of the ceasefire. When and where and other details are yet to be worked out," he told AFP.

Knappskog said the Norwegians were in contact with the Government and the LTTE to arrange the meeting as soon as possible. The President has sought the presence of Norwegian and Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) representatives in the talks.

Helgesen told AFP in Oslo that no decision had been made on the date or location of upcoming talks, although TamilNet quoted Balasingham as saying the talks would be held in Oslo within the next two weeks.

"We reached an agreement to hold talks on the ceasefire. The location and the date have not been decided," Helgesen said.

However, he added that "the two parties are eager to hold these talks as soon as possible," and said Norway was "ready" to welcome the two sides for talks if that was what they wanted.

"The Norwegian embassy in Colombo is continuing its discussions with the two sides. Friday is a holiday in Sri Lanka but we will know more after the weekend," he said.

It is a question of a discussing the implementation of the Ceasefire, said SLMM Chief Hagrup Haukland.

"It's just to run through the CFA and run through the problem areas and then see how to strengthen it and how to implement it," he added.

This will be the first major high level face-to-face talks since the LTTE pulled out of peace talks in April 2003. The Government and the Tigers held six rounds of peace talks from September 2002.

"We reached an agreement to hold talks on the ceasefire. The location and the date have not been decided," Helgesen said.

It is a question of a discussing the implementation of the Ceasefire, said Hagrup Haukland, head of the SLMM.

"It's just to run through the CFA and run through the problem areas and then see how to strengthen it and how to implement it," he added.

This will be the first major high level face-to-face talks since the LTTE pulled out of peace talks in April 2003. The Government and the Tigers held six rounds of peace talks from September 2002.

President Kumaratunga and the Government have repeatedly called for a review of the CFA in the wake of an escalation of ceasefire violations by the LTTE in recent months. A number of killings have taken place in Colombo, Jaffna and the East.

The Government had, even before the assassination of the Minister Kadirgamar, requested the SLMM to arrange a meeting between senior military personnel and senior LTTE cadres to devise ways and means of ending the killings.

Earlier, the President informed Norwegian Foreign Minister Jan Petersen to apprise the LTTE of a lacuna in the CFA enforcement mechanism. The President expressed her great concern over ceasefire violations by the LTTE.

Government Spokesman Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva said yesterday that the Government did not want to amend the CFA but insisted that some procedures should be agreed upon for its enforcement.

"The Government is committed to continuing with the CFA and it has no intention of going back to war," he said. The LTTE has also said that it does not want to go back to war.

The SLMM on Thursday formally conveyed the Government's protest over Kadirgamar's killing to the LTTE, which has denied any involvement. But the Government has not accepted the LTTE denial as all evidence clearly points to its complicity. Minister Kadirgamar, a well-known critic of the Tigers, spearheaded the campaign for an international ban on the group.

The three-year truce has been threatened by a spate of killings in Colombo and elsewhere. Minister Kadirgamar was the most high profile figure assassinated during the truce.