November 2, 2002	Saturday	Sha’aban 26,1423

NAKHON PATHOM (Thailand), Nov 1: Sri Lankan negotiators meeting for a second round of peace talks made an early breakthrough on Friday on rebuilding their war-ravaged nation with foreign funding, even as trouble brewed at home.

Sri Lanka’s chief negotiator, G. L. Peiris, said the former foes had agreed on a blueprint for a system to jointly seek millions of dollars in foreign aid and rebuild areas devastated by decades of ethnic violence.

“We have every reason to be satisfied with the outcome of the talks this morning,” Peiris said. “We have come up with a structure that will be acceptable to the international donor community.”

The Sri Lankan government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) broadly agreed on the need to win foreign aid, but there were sharp differences over the composition and the powers of a joint panel.

Peiris, also the government’s constitutional affairs minister, declined to give details of the agreement, but said it would be formally announced at the end of the talks on Sunday. “We have demonstrated that given a spirit of goodwill, we are able to reconcile our differences,” he said.

“We went very far this morning. We had three objectives: to make it acceptable to the international community; to see that it is agreeable with the government and the LTTE; and to see that it is within conformity of the Sri Lanka law. We have achieved all three.”—AFP