Sri Lanka peace talks moved back

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Sri Lanka peace talks moved back


Norway has announced that peace talks between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels will be held a few days later than scheduled.


Negotiators from both sides will now meet in Geneva on 24-25 April, the Norwegian government says.

The sides were originally scheduled to meet on 19 April, but the rebels sought a postponement on Thursday.

Rebel leaders say they need to consult senior commanders. Truce monitors say violence could derail peace efforts.

Earlier, foreign donors urged both sides to hold the talks on schedule.

A statement by Norway, Japan, the EU and the US also voiced fears over Sri Lanka's security situation after more than 30 deaths in attacks this week.

The government has blamed the Tamil Tigers for the violence, although the rebels deny involvement.

The two sides held an earlier round of talks in Geneva in February in which they pledged to curb violence.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4909826.stm

 

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Sri Lanka’s Tigers say will go to talks, but late

Sri Lanka’s Tigers say will go to talks, but late

COLOMBO - Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels said on Thursday they will attend peace talks in Switzerland, surprising diplomats who had taken recent attacks to mean the meeting was off.


Repeated suspected rebel attacks on government forces and ethnic violence have killed more than 40 people over the past week, sharply raising fears of a return to civil war.

“The Geneva talks will happen,” head of the rebel peace secretariat, S. Puleedevan, told Reuters by satellite phone from Kilinochchi, the de facto rebel capital. “But the dates will have to be moved by a bit. We will go once we have met our eastern commanders from April 15 to 22.”

There was no immediate government reaction. The talks were originally scheduled to take place from April 19-21.

The government’s refusal to grant safe conduct for a Sea Tiger vessel bringing eastern rebel leaders to Kilinochchi had been the key sticking point, but the rebels said they were now willing for their commanders to travel by civilian ferry.

Swedish Major-General Ulf Henricsson, head of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, would travel on board the ferry to guarantee their safety, Puleedevan said after a meeting between the SLMM and the head of the Tiger political wing.

Diplomats said they were surprised by the last-minute Tiger statement, but that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were well known for their brinksmanship.

In January, suspected rebel attacks also pushed the island to the edge of war before the Tigers agreed to the first round of Geneva talks, which took place in February.

Deserted streets, burnt vehicles

Wednesday was the bloodiest day since the 2002 ceasefire, with 16 people killed in blasts the government blamed on the rebels and in the ethnic riot that followed in the northeastern port town of Trincomalee.

A mob from the island’s majority Sinhalese community attacked Tamil shops. The rebels accused the army of supporting the mob but the military said they restored order as fast as possible.

Streets of the town were deserted on Thursday, with soldiers on patrol and burnt out vehicles littering the area.

Earlier on Thursday, the Tigers also accused the army of killing two rebels in two separate ambushes -- a charge the military again denied. Three Tamil civilians were killed by unknown gunmen in the northern army enclave of Jaffna.

The two-decade civil war killed more than 64,000 people before the 2002 ceasefire. But tensions have remained high between the rebels and the government.

There is still no common ground -- and plenty of historic hatred -- between the two sides, and President Mahinda Rajapakse has repeatedly ruled out rebel demands for a separate Tamil homeland in the island’s north and east.

Puleedevan said the rebels would talk in Switzerland about Tamil armed groups -- including renegade ex-Tigers the Karuna group -- who they say the army uses to attack them. But diplomats say recent violence will weaken their bargaining position.”If the talks had happened two weeks ago, the Tigers would have been almost praised for their restraint and the government would have been chastised for not disarming the armed groups,” said a Western diplomat on condition of anonymity. “But now, that position is reversed.”


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