May 8, 2003	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 5, 1424

COLOMBO, May 7: LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran is set to sound the government next week about the LTTE’s possible decision to re-enter the peace talks, a Japanese peace envoy is said to have told the Sri Lankan government on Wednesday.

The LTTE’s decision to think about re-entering the negotiations came after a visit from a Japanese peace envoy Yashushi Akashi on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Douglas Devananda the secretary general of the anti-LTTE Tamil political party, the EPDP, has written to heads of important foreign missions in Colombo about the recent murder and abduction of EPDP members, allegedly by the LTTE.

President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga had issued a special order that adequate protection should be given to EPDP members.

WICKREMESINGHE: Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe expressed confidence on Tuesday that the LTTE would get back to the negotiating table.

Addressing the parliament, he said that his government had the full backing of the international community, especially the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and Norway.

Mr Wickremesinghe said the international community is acting as the security net to hold the LTTE onto the negotiating process, which aims at bringing a workable solution within a federal structure to end 20 years of a separatist war waged by the Tigers for a separate Tamil state in the northeast of the country.