November 10, 2003	Monday	Ramazan 14, 1424

COLOMBO, Nov 9: Sri Lanka’s beleaguered prime minister on Sunday told foreign backers he was ready to bow out of the peace process with Tamil rebels and transfer the task to his arch-rival President Chandrika Kumaratunga.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who returned home on Friday after winning support for his leadership from President George W. Bush, met with diplomats on Sunday to make the offer, chief government negotiator G. L. Peiris said.

“The government believes it is not possible to deal with the peace process unless only one person is in charge,” Peiris told reporters.

Kumaratunga, meanwhile, ruled out a snap election which many had predicted would be her way out of the political crisis she triggered on Tuesday by sacking the ministers of defence, interior and information and suspending parliament for two weeks.

“Not unless (an election) is forced by further developments which I don’t intend to cause or provoke,” the president said in answer to a question during an interview with Indian television station NDTV 24x7 broadcast on Sunday.

But Peiris on Sunday said the prime minister could no longer run the peace process effectively if it did not have full control over all aspects of government.

“There must be coherence. If he does not control defence, the interior and the media, it is not possible for the prime minister to accept responsibility for the process,” Peiris said.

In her televised address Friday night, Kumaratunga complained that she had not been asked to sign the accord in February last year between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an omission which she said made it invalid.

“If the ceasefire agreement is illegal, then how can the prime minister accept responsibility for the ceasefire,” Peiris shot back Sunday.

He said the prime minister told representatives of the United States, Japan, Norway and the European Union — the co- chairs of the drive to raise support for the peace bid — that he was willing to give the leadership of the process to Kumaratunga.

Wickremesinghe asked them to “explore the possibility of the president taking over the process,” Peiris said. He added that the visit of two top Norwegian peace brokers — deputy foreign minister Vidar Helgesen and special advisor Erik Solheim — who are due here Monday to talk with Colombo and the Tigers, would go ahead.

Kumaratunga denied claims by Wickremesinghe and by the Tamil Tigers that she was endangering the peace process by her actions.

“I don’t see how the peace process could be at risk unless I ordered the forces to go to war or something,” she said in an interview televised on Sunday by the BBC.

She complained she had been excluded from the peace process even though her assent was required for key decisions.

“Sometimes I was not consulted but as head of government I am part of the peace process and nothing in that peace process can become law without my being part of it,” Kumaratunga said. “So perhaps now one could work closer together.”

Asked by the BBC if she was optimistic about the future of the peace, she responded by questioning the sincerity of the Tamil Tigers, who on October 31 unveiled their first ever blueprint for a political settlement.

“I don’t know how serious they (Tigers) are because I haven’t spoken to them for some time. All we can know is (by) looking at written documents and their statements,” she said.

Kumaratunga’s party, which is in opposition in parliament, has rejected the Tiger peace plan as a stepping stone for a separate state.

The president also denied there was a political crisis in the country. “What is the crisis? I don’t see any crisis.”

In a later interview with Indian television station NDTV 24x7, the president said she had no immediate intention of a calling a snap election as many analysts have predicted.

Asked if the country was heading toward a constitutional crisis, she replied, “I don’t think it is a constitutional crisis until Mr Ranil Wickremesinghe and some of his ministers make it into one.”

DEFENCE MINISTER: Sri Lanka’s sacked defence minister acknowledged that a rebel Tamil Tigers’ camp near Trincomalee posed a threat to the eastern port, but denied he had been lax in his duties as claimed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga.

The camp had existed for several years and the president had long known about it, the former minister Thilak Marapana told a media conference here.

Rebels in the camp were particularly dangerous as they possessed three or four heavy artillery pieces which they had captured from government troops, he added.—AFP