COLOMBO, April 24: Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels, who have pulled out of peace talks to end two decades of civil war, said on Thursday they had also walked away from a planned meeting on humanitarian issues.
In a letter sent to the government, the rebels said the humanitarian talks, which were looking at ways to start repairing lives in the war-shattered north and east, would not be held until progress had been made on earlier government promises.
“We also wish to implore the government of Sri Lanka to take immediate steps to act on matters already agreed at previous meetings,” the letter said.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said on Monday it had suspended the peace negotiations because it was unhappy about being excluded from an aid donors’ planning meeting and a lack of progress in improving living conditions for minority Tamils.
The move is the biggest threat yet to what had been a growing peace process to permanently end the 20-year war although the rebels have said they were committed to a negotiated end to the conflict.
The two sides were to have sat down next week in Thailand for a seventh round of talks since a Norwegian-brokered February 2002 ceasefire was signed, with the donor conference and another round of talks set for Japan in June.
Chief government negotiator G.L. Peiris said the government was taking steps to address the Tigers’ grievances, including looking at ways to relocate army camps in the northern Jaffna peninsula to allow displaced people to return home.
“Once that housing problem is resolved, we can step up resettlement,” Peiris told a regular news conference.
He said the government was also working with Norway to see that funds pledged at an Oslo aid meeting last November would be used as soon as possible to help rehabilitate the north and east.
“Norway is bringing notice of the steps the government is taking to the LTTE...We have every expectation that the dialogue will resume in due course,” Peiris said.
Peiris said the prime minister would respond in writing to the rebel decision to suspend negotiations and said the government viewed President Kumaratunga’s calls for increased security as unnecessary.—Reuters
