COLOMBO, July 8: Sri Lanka’s main opposition party on Saturday threatened to withdraw its support to President Mahinda Rajapakse’s peace moves if the government continued to ‘snatch’ opposition legislators.

Last week a legislator belonging to the United National Party (UNP) crossed over to the government and was inducted into the cabinet as deputy minister for rural development.

Susantha Punchinilame is the fourth UNP parliamentarian to have crossed over to Mr Rajapakse’s ruling coalition since January this year.

We have strongly indicated that if this goes on we will withdraw our support to the government on all issues, UNP parliamentarian Jayalath Jayawardena told Dawn.