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"It is extremely likely that historic developments will occur within the next 48 hours with regard to the signing of the cessation of hostilities agreement between the government and the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam)," Cabinet spokesman Prof. G. L. Peiris said today. He said that the signing (of a permanent truce agreement) was ‘still on track’ in spite of the military report of a clash between the Sri Lanka navy and unidentified boats, Thursday morning. "It is a utopian expectation to have a ceasefire devoid of incidents of this nature, and this (the navy clash) has no bearing to the peace process," Prof. Peiris said. “The most important thing is to deal with such situations in a manner as to prevent them from escalating; which means we must have constant communications between the parties through the Norwegian facilitator,” he added. The peace deal is being brokered by Norway and is aimed at ending the 18-year old war in the north and east of the country and resolving the ethnic problem. Meanwhile the Norwegian Embassy in Colombo denied reports by local newspapers announcing the arrival of the Norwegian Peace Delegation in Sri Lanka today. Asked as to who would be signing the agreement, Professor G L Peiris said that it would be signed by the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka and the leader of the LTTE. He said that the cessation of hostilities agreement would serve the purpose of “creating the basic atmosphere that will be conducive to the productive and fruitful handling of the substantive discussions,” expected to commence within the next two months.
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