June 12, 2003	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 11, 1424

COLOMBO, June 11: Tamil Tiger rebels on Wednesday rejected Sri Lanka’s latest offer aimed at ending a seven-week deadlock in peace talks and lambasted foreign governments for meddling in the country’s internal affairs.

The euphoria of Sri Lanka winning 4.5 billion dollars in foreign aid at a conference in Tokyo earlier this week evaporated with the Tigers slamming “formidable external forces” for complicating a conflict which has killed over 60,000 since 1972.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said a “provisional administrative structure” proposed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe at the foreign donors’ conference on Monday was unacceptable.

“We are disappointed to note that the prime minister’s statement does not offer anything new,” the LTTE said.

The rebels said they wanted a politico-administrative structure for the northeast, where the minority Tamils are concentrated, with wider participation for the LTTE.

Asian and western diplomats viewed the LTTE’s latest statement with concern and said it had dashed hopes of an early revival of the peace process

The Tigers also said they were not bound by a “declaration” of the international donor community at the end of a two-day meeting in Tokyo which saw the huge amount of aid pledged to help rebuild Sri Lanka in the next four years.

They boycotted the conference as part of their suspension of peace talks announced on April 21.

“The LTTE was not involved in the deliberations or in the formulation of these declarations. We have not been consulted on the set of propositions and resolutions enunciated in the Tokyo Declaration.

“The Colombo government, with the active assistance of the facilitator (Norway) and its international ‘tactical allies’ has formulated this strategic paper (of the prime minister’s latest offer) to superimpose its own agenda on the LTTE. This is unacceptable to us,” the statement said.

The Tigers also warned of serious consequences following the involvement of other countries in the peace process.—AFP