Furuhovde here shortly
 

BY Uditha Kumarasinghe and Manjula Fernando

FORMER Head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) Rt. Major General Trond Furuhovde will arrive in Sri Lanka shortly for discussions with the Government and the LTTE to explore the possibility of agreeing on a modality to strengthen the implementation mechanism of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA).

The venue for talks on the CFA is expected to figure prominently at these discussions.

The Norwegian Government has already informed the Government on the visit of their representative for discussions with both parties, Cabinet Spokesman Minister Nimal Siripala De Silva told the weekly Cabinet press briefing yesterday. He said a consensus is yet to be reached on the venue to resume talks on the CFA.

Minister de Silva said the co-chairs of the Tokyo Donor Conference will meet again in New York on September 19.

"The conference will make an overview of the events in Sri Lanka specially with regard to the CFA, the brutal killing of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar and the situation arising in its aftermath. Therefore we are awaiting the outcome of the conference," he said.

The Tokyo Donor Conference was held in July 2003 in Tokyo which comprised the US, EU, Norway and Japan.

During this conference priority was given to grant financial aid to Sri Lanka and the peace process, he said.