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LTTE
rejects Asian venue, insists on Europe LTTE political wing leader S. P. Thamilselvan said yesterday that the LTTE decision rejecting the government’s offer had been conveyed to the Government’s Peace Secretariat. “The first round of talks should be confined to review the Ceasefire Agreement,” Mr. Thamilselvan said. However Government Peace Secretariat Acting Chief John Goonaratne told The Sunday Times that until Saturday noon they had not received an official response from the LTTE to its previous communication inviting it for talks. The LTTE’s position was declared, a day after Cabinet Spokesman Nimal Sripala de Silva said the government was ready to reopen discussions in any Asian country. But, Mr. Thamilselvan said the LTTE wanted the first round of talks held in Norway and the other round of talks could be held in other European countries. He said the LTTE was aware that the government was on a campaign to get the organization banned by the EU where currently a travel ban exists on LTTE members.Mr. de Silva on Friday said the government was prepared to ‘discuss anything’ if talks were resumed with the LTTE as it believed that the talks would be an ‘icebreaker’. The Government’s position was considered a shift from the pre-presidential election period in which the Mahinda Chinthana manifesto declared that a “specific time frame and a clear agenda” would be presented to the LTTE to resume discussions. The Foreign Ministry drawing reference to reports that Norway had placed conditions on continuing its role as facilitator to the peace process in Sri Lanka on Friday said the references to certain conditions were ‘misleading”. The ministry statement said that discussions between Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera and his Norwegian counterpart Jonas Gahr Store in Hong Kong focused on ‘evolving a fresh approach by the two new governments to carry forward the peace process and including modalities to resume talks at the earliest”. Norwegian embassy spokesman in Colombo, Tom Knappskog declined to comment about the statement or about reports of Norway placing conditions. |
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