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S.Lanka Tigers, govt divided over restart to talks

26 May 2004 10:34:04 GMT

(Recasts with rebel statement)

By Lindsay Beck

COLOMBO, May 26 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's government and Tamil Tigers were divided on Wednesday over the basis for restarting stalled peace talks, with a disagreement over the rebels' demand that negotiations be based on their power-sharing proposal.

A rebel Web site said Norwegian envoy Erik Solheim told Tiger political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan the president wanted talks on a final settlement to end the 20-year civil war alongside discussions on their interim proposal.

"In responding to the president's thinking, Mr. Thamilselvan said that institutionalising the ISGA (Interim Self-Governing Authority) should take place first," the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) Peace Secretariat Web site said.

Norway, which brokered a truce signed in February 2002 that has given the island its longest period of peace since the war broke out in 1983, is trying to secure a date to resume direct talks the Tigers suspended in April last year.

A top Tiger negotiator said two weeks ago Norway would make an announcement in a "day or two" on when and where talks could restart, but when no announcement was forthcoming it led to worries of new differences between the two sides.

Solheim was to meet President Chandrika Kumaratunga late on Wednesday or on Thursday to convey the Tigers's message, after she apparently snubbed him by not finding time to meet him before his trip to the rebel-held north as initially planned.

"I think everything hinges on what the president tells Solheim," said a source close to the Tigers.

"If it (the sticking point) is the ISGA, I think it's going to become a real deal-breaker. I don't think the LTTE has the space to step back from that," he said.

TIGER PROPOSALS LAST YEAR

The Tigers, who have been fighting for a separate state for minority Tamils, put forward the interim power-sharing proposal in October last year, and have not budged since from their position that they want it to be the basis for talks.

They cited a lack of rebuilding in the war-torn north and east as the main reason for breaking off talks, and say only with the ISGA can they "demonstrate to the people that their urgent humanitarian needs would be effectively met".

"The specific details of an ISGA can be discussed, but as a concept it can't be stepped back from," the source said of the proposal, which would grant the rebels power over rehabilitation.

Kumaratunga is under pressure to finalise a date for talks before a June 1 donor meeting, with aid conditional on progress in the peace process, but compromising on the power-sharing proposal could mean alienating a key wing of her coalition.

Her United People's Freedom Alliance won a minority mandate at elections last month but more than one-third of its seats belong to the People's Liberation Front (JVP), a hardline Sinhalese nationalist party that says it will only agree to talks that also address how to permanently end the separatist war.

Kumaratunga, who is also defence minister, also appointed former Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake as her deputy on Wednesday, as well as giving him a cabinet portfolio with the buddhism ministry and Ministry of Public Security, Law and Order.

She also appointed D.E.W. Gunasekera, a Communist Party member and former chairman of state television as Minister of Constitutional Reforms.

http://www.reuters.com/