Norwegian peace envoy to visit Sri Lanka next week

Colombo, Mar 29 (UNI) The newly appointed Norwegian special peace envoy, Jon Hanssen-Bauer, is scheduled to make his maiden visit on Monday, a Norwegian Embassy statement said here today.

During his four-day stay in Sri Lanka, Mr Hanssen-Bauer will have meetings with President Mahinda Rajapakse, representatives of the Government and with the Tamil Tiger rebels in the rebel-held Kilinochchi. He will also meet with other political leaders.

Meanwhile, Minister of International Development, Erik Solheim, will also make a brief visit to Sri Lanka on April 6 for meetings here in Colombo.

The proposed visits by the Norwegian facilitators have come at a time, when both the government and the LTTE delegations are getting ready for the next round direct talks in Geneva in mid-April.

At the first round of hard bargaining in Geneva in mid-February, while the Tamil Tigers agreed to stop attacks on the government security forces and police, the Sri lankan government pledged to control the armed groups, whom the LTTE accused of being harboured and used by the military against the Tigers.

The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) overseeing the fragile ceasefire agreement for the past four years, charged last week that both the parties have shown lack of commitment to their word and the spirit of the ceasefire agreement, as their actions have been provocative, and warned the current escalation of violence could result in the country returning to the era of bloody war.

UNI XC AD HT1955