COLOMBO: A renewed Norwegian bid to coax Sri Lanka’s government and Tamil Tiger rebels back to the negotiating table ran into fresh difficulties on Wednesday amid disputes over the timing and venue for talks.
Oslo’s special peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer was in fresh talks with Sri Lankan officials to try to set a date, a day after the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) failed to commit itself to any timing for negotiations.
“No one expected this process to be easy,” said a diplomat close to the peace effort, aimed at saving a tattered 2002 truce and ending a spiral of violence which has claimed more than 1,500 lives since December.
Hundreds of nationalists opposed to Oslo’s role as peace broker also took to the streets of the capital, prompting police to seal off roads leading to the Norwegian embassy, police said.
“We have taken extra security precautions to ensure that the demonstrators won’t get near the embassy to cause any trouble,” a police official said, as Colombo suffered added traffic chaos due to stepped-up checks on vehicles.
In the north of the island, government jets kept up their attacks against suspected Tamil Tiger targets, a day after similar raids coincided with a visit to the area by Norway’s special peace envoy Jon Hanssen-Bauer.
Tiger guerrillas fired at military defence lines, prompting the military to “counter the Tiger fire using counter-battery fire and air strikes in the morning hours today,” the defence ministry said.
The Sri Lankan government, which earlier said it was ready for negotiations at a day’s notice, has told Hanssen-Bauer the earliest the talks could start was October 30. The alternate date was November 10.
Diplomats also said the Tigers wanted the talks towards the end of the month in Oslo, as suggested by Norway, but the Sri Lankan government preferred any meeting to take place in Switzerland and on a different date.
Sri Lanka’s main Muslim Leader Rauf Hakeem meanwhile said he had a closed-door meeting with Hanssen-Bauer on taking minority Muslim concerns on board if and when the negotiations between Colombo and the Tigers resume.
Mulims, who are officially listed as an ethnic community rather than a religious group, are the second largest minority after Tamils and want to be included in any future talks between Colombo and the Tigers.
“In his own words, he expressed ‘cautious optimism’ regarding peace talks resuming,” but gave no mention of a possible date for resuming negotiations, Hakeem told reporters after his talks with the envoy.—AFP
