SLMM to forward 'requirements' to resume sea monitoring

Chamikara Weerasinghe

COLOMBO: The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) will forward certain requirements to be met by the LTTE and the Government before it will resume its sea monitoring activities, said SLMM sources.

The Mission has temporarily suspended its naval monitoring activities following the Thursday's incident when the LTTE had opened fire at a troops carrier with SLMM monitors on board in the seas off Vettilaikerni.

The Mission's decision to continue with the suspension of its naval monitoring came at a meeting held yesterday at the SLMM headquarters in Colombo between SLMM Chief Ulf Henricsson and SLMM sea monitors.

The statement issued by the SLMM following the meeting:

Naval monitors from the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) met with Head of Mission, Major General Ulf Henricsson in SLMM headquarters today to discuss Thursday's attacks and whether to resume naval monitoring.

The SLMM will forward some requirements to the parties before the resumption of naval monitoring can take place.

The modalities of these requirements will be worked out in the coming days. In the meantime SLMM naval monitoring remains temporarily suspended.

SLMM sources said, it had proposed to the Norwegian facilitators to increase the number of its monitors from the present 57 monitors to 75 monitors to intensify their monitoring as with the escalation of cease-fire violations.