Sri Lanka's warring parties agreed to meet for talks in Geneva
on February 22, ending a three-year deadlock in negotiations on how
to end decades of ethnic bloodshed, peace broker Norway Monday
said.
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The breakthrough came after Norway's top envoy Erik Solheim met the
Tamil Tiger rebel chief negotiator Anton Balasingham in London.
"The parties to the conflict in Sri Lanka, the government of Sri
Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, have asked Norway
to facilitate talks in Geneva from February 22 to 23," the
Norwegian embassy said in a statement.
The two-day talks are initially aimed at strengthening a
ceasefire that went into effect on February 23, 2002 but has not
been fully implemented by either the military or the Tamil
Tigers.
"The parties will discuss how they can improve the
implementation of the ceasefire agreement," the embassy said. "This
is the first time in three years that the parties meet face-to-face
at such a high level."
Solheim said he will lead Norway's own team at the talks. The
four-member Tiger delegation will be led by Balasingham and Sri
Lanka's team will be headed by Health Minister Nimal Siripala de
Silva.
"The parties are taking a small, but very significant step
towards putting the peace process back on a positive track,"
Solheim said. "We expect the negotiations to be tough."
He said Norway's former deputy foreign minister Vidar Helgesen,
who played a key role in the peace process in earlier rounds of
talks, will also be involved in the Geneva negotiations.
"The parties have chosen Geneva for their meeting because of the
very supportive role Switzerland has always played," the statement
said, adding that the two sides were expected to focus on
strengthening the ceasefire.
Earlier the two sides were squabbling over a venue, with the
Tigers insisting on the Norwegian capital while Colombo wanted an
Asian venue. Later both compromised and agreed to travel to Geneva
for the talks but no date had been set till Monday.
The truce came under renewed pressure following an escalation of
violence since December in which at least 153 people were
killed.
However, the level of violence fell after Solheim on January 25
clinched a deal between Colombo and the Tigers to end the deadlock
in their talks and have a face-to-face meeting in Geneva.
The two sides had their last face-to-face meeting in Japan in
March 2003 but the Tigers pulled out of what would have been the
seventh round of negotiations scheduled in Thailand in April
2003.
Four previous peace attempts have ended in failure and led to
more bloodshed in a country where more than 60,000 people have been
killed since 1972.
Sri Lanka's key financial backers said Monday that the agreement
to revive talks will help reconstruction but there would be no
significant foreign investment until lasting peace was
achieved.
"We haven't got a security and a peace framework in which people
have full confidence at this time," the World Bank's country
director for Sri Lanka, Peter Harrold, told reporters before the
talk dates were announced.
He said the country had maintained an average growth rate of
five percent even during the height of fighting, but real peace was
essential to attract serious investments.
(Chinadaily.com via agencies February 7, 2006)
