NEW DELHI, April 23: Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga said on Tuesday her country had failed to build a pluralist state since independence and this had given rise to one of the bloodiest ethnic conflicts in recent times.

Her comments appeared to be a further softening of her tough stance against the island’s Tamil Tiger rebels who have been fighting the government since 1983 in a conflict which has killed 64,000 people and displaced thousands of others.

“In Sri Lanka, we have faltered in the essential task of nation-building since independence...We have failed to address the issue of building a truly pluralist nation-state,” Kumaratunga said at a lecture in the Indian capital.

“You are aware of the horrendous consequences of this neglect — the rise of the armed struggle of one of the minority communities in my country, which has grown into the most ruthless armed conflict seen anywhere in the world, in our times,” she said in a largely pacifist speech.

The remarks come ahead of face-to-face peace talks between the Tamil Tiger rebels — who are fighting for a separate state — and the United National Party government headed by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, archrivals of Kumaratunga’s People’s Alliance.

The Tamil rebels have for long complained that the Tamil minority in the country’s north and east have not been treated fairly and accuse Sri Lanka’s politics of being racist.

Kumaratunga was a vocal critic of Wickremesinghe’s plans to accommodate the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and had last month slammed the Norwegian-brokered truce.

But she has since come around and eased her hardline opposition to lifting a ban on the LTTE, a key demand of the rebels ahead of the peace talks set for June in Thailand.

Kumaratunga, who is on a week-long working visit to New Delhi, called for the setting up of an independent, non-political national institutions with the authority to make policies to address the problems of the minorities.

She said the LTTE was “one of the world’s two most dangerous and ruthlessly efficient terrorist organisations” along with the al Qaeda network Washington blames for the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities.

But she said the Tamil militants did not “create the cicumstances for the marginalisation” of Sri Lanka’s minorities.

“It is perceived injustice that has engendered violent or terroristic responses from those who feel victims of injustice.”—Reuters