President ready for talks: priority to stopping killings

[January 22, 2006 - 8.30 GMT]

President Mahinda Rajapaksa said he was ready for talks with the LTTE in keeping with the unanimous decision of the All Party Conference summoned by him on January 19.

The President who is scheduled to meet Erik Solheim,Norway's special envoy for the Sri Lankan Peace Process on Tuesday, January 24, will urge him to
ask the LTTE to come for discussions on the current situation.

Once talks begin his first request to the LTTE would be to put an end to the killings and violence in the North and East.

The President said he was echoing the views of the vast majority of Sri Lankans who longed for peace and also the international community that was urging an end to the violence and the resumption of negotiations to solve the ethnic issue and restore peace in the country.

He told this website he had been hardly given time to breathe by the LTTE from the time he took office last November, when it stepped up the attacks on the security forces. Commenting on the pattern of attacks he said that judging from the large number of navy personnel targeted for attack, the LTTE appeared to want to weaken the naval activities of the security forces.

President Rajapakse added that he was acting with a great deal of patience and restraint that had been observed and commended by the international community too. However, he said, there can be a limit to such patience. He had given the security forces the right to use arms in self defence in keeping with the normal law of the land, in addition to it being part of
the Ceasefire Agreement, which required revision based on the experience of the past three years since it was signed.

The resumption of talks between the Government and the LTTE and putting an end to the current killings had the utmost priority, the President said.

 

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Last Updated Date: January 22, 2005 - 8.30 GMT