Prime Minister focuses on ending war

Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse said his top priority would be to end the war with the LTTE. Rajapakse, in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, said he would even be willing to be the first Sri Lankan President to meet the LTTE's secretive leader.

"I am willing to walk an extra mile to reach (the) goal of peace," he said.

The presidential elections, which must be held before November 22, are coming at a tense time in Sri Lanka since an 2002 cease-fire brought a halt to fighting between the Government and the Tigers.

Rajapakse, the candidate of the ruling party, said nothing on how long the emergency should last, but stressed that he was committed to the peace process. "I am not for war, I am totally against war," Rajapakse said during the interview at his residence in Colombo. He insisted Monday "that all of us agree that the war must end forever." Rajapakse set only one condition for the peace process: a time limit.

Since the peace process began in 2002, critics have accused the Tigers of dragging the process out so they could regroup and rearm.

But Rajapakse did not say how long a time limit he would ask for if elected.