Bauer intensifies talks efforts

Manjula Fernando

NORWEGIAN Special Envoy Jon Hanssen Bauer remained tight-lipped as he left the Foreign Ministry after having a closed door meeting with Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera last afternoon, ahead of the decisive trip to Kilinochchi today.

Bauer will be meeting LTTE political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvam at the LTTE peace secretariat this morning where he is to be briefed on the LTTE's stance on the private helicopter offer and their participation in Geneva 2.

Contacted by the Daily News, a senior official of the Presidential Secretariat said the need for a meeting between President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Peace Envoy Bauer did not arise at the moment as Bauer had been fully briefed on the issues at hand by the Peace Secretariat as well as by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake and Minister Samaraweera.

The envoy met the Prime Minister earlier yesterday. What was discussed in this meeting also remained undisclosed.

The meeting with the Foreign Minister lasted about 90 minutes. It was attended by Peace Secretariat (SCOPP) Chief Dr. Palitha Kohona, Foreign Secretary H.M.G.S. Palihakkara and Norwegian Ambassador Hans Brattskar.

Bauer made this unscheduled visit to Colombo in their last minute efforts to get the two parietes to meet in Geneva for the second round of CFA talks, amidst escalating violence in the East with the LTTE reported to have killed nearly 50 military personnel and civilians in claymore mine attacks since the previous round of truce talks.

Bauer arrived on Tuesday afternoon and held a meeting with SLMM Chief Ulf Henrickson the same evening.

Earlier, the LTTE demanded safe transport facilities from the Government for their Eastern leaders to have a consultation session with their leadership as a precondition for talks.

With the Government agreeing to a compromise and letting the facilitators hire a private helicopter to settle the issue, the LTTE is said to have switched their demand saying they were unable to come for negotiations until the Government takes action to ease tension in the East.

This has cast doubts over their sincerity in making the Geneva talks a reality.

Last minute efforts are on to salvage the truce talks and Thamilselvam is expected to convey their stance to Oslo's special envoy today. Meanwhile, the SLMM chief said they were not at all satisfied with the attempts by the two parties to engage in talks in Geneva as planned.

"I can't say we are satisfied with the developments. There is no agreement on the date," he said. The transport issue still remained an obstacle to the talks and time was fast running out.

"The meeting in kilinochchi tomorrow is an important event," he said adding that they will know more about the situation after this meeting.