Govt. to withdraw from CFA  

[Thursday, January 03, 2008 - 4.00 GMT]    

The Cabinet yesterday (January 02) unanimously decided to withdraw from the Norwegian arranged Ceasefire Agreement entered with the LTTE in 2002.

The Cabinet has approved the Cabinet memorandum submitted by Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanyaka at the Cabinet meeting yesterday.

The Government took this decision taking into account the number of Ceasefire violations by the LTTE.

According to the Agreement, either party should give two weeks notification prior to the withdrawal from the Ceasefire to the Norwegian facilitators. With the government’s decision the Norwegian-led Nordic monitoring mission would end its assignment here. The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) suspended naval monitoring in May 2006 after Sea Tigers targeted a Sri Lanka Navy convoy off Mullaitivu carrying two naval monitors.

The Ceasefire came into effect on February 22, 2002 with then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe signing the Ceasefire Agreement to pursue a peaceful solution to the North East problem. Velupillai Prabhakaran signed the agreement on behalf of the LTTE.

The LTTE unilaterally quit the peace process in April 2003.

The six rounds of peace were held from September 2002 to March 2003 three times in Thailand and the other three rounds in Norway, Germany and Japan.

The two rounds of talks held in Geneva during President Rajapaksa’s administration, collapsed with the LTTE withdrawing from talks for no apparent reason.