Lanka, LTTE talks fail to take off in Oslo

Colombo, Jun 8 (UNI) The proposed talks in Oslo between the Sri Lankan Government delegation led by Dr Palitha Kohona and the LTTE have failed as the LTTE delegation head S P Thamiselvan refused to meet the government delegation.

The talks were to be held at the Thorbjornrud Hotel A S in Jevnaker near Oslo.

''The LTTE has refused to meet with the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) delegation after arriving at the conference venue in Norway,'' a statement from the government Peace Secretariat said this evening.

''The Norwegian government representatives expressed complete surprise at the stance taken by the LTTE despite all the background preparations made by the facilitators,'' the government statement said while the Norwegian facilitators were making their full-scale diplomacy to iron out the differences between the visiting delegations and break the shackles.

This was to be the first meeting between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE after the European Union included the LTTE in its list of foreign terrorist organisation.

''The GOSL delegation was also informed that the LTTE had indicated the presence of Nationals from Sweden, Denmark and Finland as members of the SLMM was objectionable as these were nationals of EU member countries,'' the statement said.

The government delegations and the LTTE went to Oslo on Monday on the invitation of the Royal Norwegian Government to discuss the operational modalities and functional attributes of the Nordic truce monitoring mission, locally known as the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM).

The government said that since the safety and security of the SLMM monitors was of prime concern, ''the GOSL delegation was looking forward to these talks which would have been of a technical nature to provide SLMM with the required assurances.'' UNI XC AD HT2037