January 31, 2003	Friday	Ziqa’ad 27, 1423

COLOMBO, Jan 30: Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels agreed on Thursday to return conscripted child soldiers and sought human rights education for its older combatants, Scandinavian truce monitors said.

The rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) agreed to release the child soldiers while in talks with Sri Lanka’s Defence Secretary Austin Fernando and the head of the truce monitoring panel, retired Norwegian army general Trond Furuhovde.

“Whenever the LTTE comes across a case of actual underage recruitment done by members of their organisation, the LTTE local leadership will work to rectify the situation,” the monitors said in a one-page statement.

It said the rebels also asked the Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) to arrange human rights education for its members with the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross and UN agencies.

The latest LTTE move came as United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) executive director Carol Bellamy arrived on the island to discuss the plight of children affected by decades of fighting.

The LTTE has been under intense international pressure to disband brigades of child soldiers but the rebels have repeatedly argued that youngsters without birth certificates were joining them.

The Tigers and the Sri Lankan government opened face-to-face peace talks in September and the question of child soldiers has figured in talks conducted since.

The fifth round of Norwegian-arranged peace talks are scheduled for Feb 7-8 in Berlin.—AFP