Lankan to work on new devolution deal for rebels

By Staff
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Google Oneindia News

COLOMBO, June 2: Sri Lanka's main political parties today agreed to work on a new power-sharing offer for the Tamil Tigers, while the rebels agreed to talks in Oslo on how to ensure truce monitor safety amid renewed conflict.

Diplomats said the new government push for consensus in how to permanently end the island's two-decade civil war was encouraging, as was the fact that both sides would hold direct talks in Norway on June 8-9, their first since February.

But the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) reserved judgement on the government initiative, peace negotiations are still stalled and analysts fear a recent surge in clashes between the rebels and military could still spiral into all-out war.

''A core group of representatives from each party will set out a basic broad framework within which the devolution package could be discussed,'' Ajith Nivard Cabraal, a senior aide to President Mahinda Rajapakse, told Reuters after the all-party meeting.

''All are in agreement that we should not have a final framework until such time as they discuss it with the LTTE,'' he added, saying any final devolution offer was still months off, at best.

The government and rebels are still poles apart over the Tigers' central demand that their de facto state in the island's north and east be recognised as a separate homeland for ethnic Tamils.

Rajapakse has flatly ruled out a separate homeland.

The Tigers have indefinitely pulled out of peace talks with the government after a surge in attacks and clashes with the military that some analysts fear could reignite a war that killed more than 64,000 people before a 2002 ceasefire.

More than 290 soldiers, police, civilians and rebels have been killed in a rash of attacks from suicide bombings to naval clashes since February in what the truce monitors and Tigers now call a ''low-intensity war''.

The Tigers stressed the upcoming Oslo talks -- which Norway scrambled to arrange after the rebels attacked navy boats with truce monitors aboard last month -- would not be peace talks, and sporadic shootings continued in the north today.

The rebel acceptance comes just days after the 25-nation European Union blacklisted them as a terrorist group and moved to freeze their assets.

''We have decided today that we will attend talks in Oslo, but they will only be talks about truce monitor safety and not peace talks,'' rebel media coordinator Daya Master said by telephone from the northern rebel stronghold of Kilinochchi.

''Our team will convey our leadership's message about the EU ban to the Nordic countries and facilitators and the damage the ban will have on peace talks,'' he added.

The Tiger delegation will fly to Oslo on Sunday.

The Tigers have warned the unarmed Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) to stop escorting navy ships or face the consequences, drawing widespread international condemnation. Diplomats say the defiance helped spur the EU ban.

REUTERS

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