COLOMBO, Nov 18: Sri Lanka’s president and prime minister appointed a committee on Tuesday to resolve their feud over sharing power, but no early end was in sight to the dispute that has frozen a peace process with Tamil Tiger rebels.

The decision came at a 90-minute meeting between President Chandrika Kumaratunga, who sacked three cabinet ministers in early November, and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, their offices said in a statement.

But the statement added that the feuding pair, who are elected separately but must work together in an awkward dual-headed government, would not meet again for two weeks.

It gave no further details of what had been said or of the committee’s mandate. The country has been in a constitutional crisis since Kumaratunga sacked the ministers and temporarily suspended parliament.

Efforts to end 20 years of war have been on hold since Kumaratunga’s power grab.

She then called for a “national unity government” made up of all parties.

Wickremesinghe turned that down and demanded that the president, who has wide constitutional powers over the army and heads the cabinet, reinstate the sacked ministers or take over the peace process.—Reuters